Pretty high school valedictorian Carla Gugino (as Rebecca Warner) leaves her wealthy small-town family for a college in Southern California. Living in the fast lane agrees with Ms. Gugino. She hooks up with RA ("Resident Adviser") dorm slacker Pauly Shore (as "Crawl"). They become so inseparable Gugino invites Mr. Shore to spend Thanksgiving break on her farm. The family is shocked by Mr. Shore's appearance and behavior. They want Shore and Gugino to break up, but the prospective "Son-in-Law" has other plans...The co-stars' courtship is strange, with Shore and Gugino seeming more like platonic pals. Shore calls Gugino "fresh meat" and jokes about arousal when spying a beautifully-proportioned woman at the beach, so we assume he's straight. Gugino has no trouble kissing Tom Cruise-type ex-boyfriend Dan Gauthier (as Travis). A final scene reveals the depth of their relationship. There is enough herein to partly amuse an adolescent audience, with young Patrick Renna (as Zack) looking juvenile chic in his "Seduce Me, Please" tee-shirt.*** Son-in-Law (7/2/93) Steve Rash ~ Pauly Shore, Carla Gugino, Lane Smith, Patrick Renna

I can't believe how low of a rating this movie has. I just watched this movie for the first time in years, and if anything... this movie has more great comedy in it than the garbage coming out these days. Pauly Shore is hilarious, Lane Smith does such a hilarious job too, well the entire cast was great. Sure the story line might be a tad bit predictable, but what's funnier than seeing someone like Pauly Shore handle farm life? This is definitely one of the top movies of 1993. Great humour, great cast, great music... it's definitely not like the movies made today where its all about male sluts hooking up with girls constantly or all sexually oriented. This is a true comedy classic. Clearly those who voted so low don't have a sense of humour.10 out of 10 for sure.

This was such a funny movie, which was soon forgotten about, probably because there are so many teen and young adult comedies, such as this. The movie is not quit as predictable as one would think. Crawl is an unattractive, but fun and caring and most importantly a very devoted friend. Still, an unlikely match for Rebecca, who has an attractive and seemingly kind boyfriend back home. When he helps feel more at ease at school, by showing her around the neighborhood and encouraging her to socialize more, they become buddies, but it is completely platonic. When she realizes her boyfriend might propose, she does not feel ready, he seems to like her boyfriend, but she seems to be enjoying her free laid back party life at college is not yet ready to live a life of marriage and responsibility. You kind of learn what a good friend Crawl is when he tells her he will help get her out of getting married. When her boyfriend proposes to her, in front of the whole family, she kicks Crawl and puts him on the spot. He tells the whole family that he proposes to her, and gives her his diamond ring, which it tunrs out was his the whole time (he must have come from money or something. Well they never really show a close up of the ring). The message of the movie seemed to be not to judge people by their looks and not to judge people before you get to know him. Rebecca's boyfriend, who her parents love, turned mean when we find out he druged his new girlfriend after Rebecca,(Amber Thesan) and Crawl, so that Rebecca would have broken up with Crawl, thinking they were a couple. Although they were not, Rebecca was mad at him, which when you think about it, was kind of unfair, since they were not a couple, but I think they were starting to like one another. And I think she thought there was more. The movie never showed them actually become a couple, they left it open for the viewers to decide. They never even actually kissed at any point, although there was one part where they almost did. That was one thing most viewers seemed to misunderstand. Many people saw it and said, that he would be a nightmare for fathers to see their daughters bring home or a shock, but they were just friends the whole time, even towards the end. And she did not introduce him as her boyfriend; still they never told her parents they were not engaged. Rebecca almost did. Even if he would never become her boyfriend, they could have still been friends. In the 90s for some reason femanin men were in, and there was this big stereo type that woman liked femanin men (not that there is anything wrong with that), think it came from the fact that women like the kind sensitive type, which Crawl proved to be, through his friendship with Rebecca. but when I saw the movie, I must admit, if I went for looks, I thought I would have gone for the first boyfriend. Still it was a creative movie, that tried to teach a lesson on friendship and judging others.

Here's another of these modern-day ultra-sleaze comedies in which dysfunctional families are supposedly hilarious. Know wonder people once asked, "What ever happened to Pauly Shore?" Well, Shore didn't disappear, but his career took a nose-dive, that's for sure. Movies like this one, didn't help.In "Son-In-Law," Shore plays an incredibly-obnoxious character called "Crawl," and yet he's the most likable of the family! His father is a profane idiot; his mother is totally incompetent, his young brother is a sex maniac and his college-age sister is a real snot.Watching an hour and a half of totally-unlikeable people was tough to do. I certainly wouldn't watch this again, or recommend it to anyone but die-hard Shore fans. Adam Sandler took Pauley's shtick and went a lot further with it.The following is an excerpt from the IMDb title page here under "biography" and it explains why I am not the only one who was disgusted with this movie."........but his lunacy was dismissed as crude, dumb and, for the most part, unfunny. His film career quickly tanked. This downhill spiral was not helped by the failure of his failed Fox sitcom "Pauly" (1997) in 1997. Lambasted unmercifully by both critics and media alike, he was soon becoming a running joke and forced to lie low and ride out the storm...."