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  Directed by
  Starring
  Specs
  • Widescreen 1.85:1
  • 16:9 Enhanced
  Languages
  • English: Dolby Digital Surround
  • French: Dolby Digital Surround
  • Spanish: Dolby Digital Surround
  • Italian: Dolby Digital Surround
  • German: Dolby Digital Mono
  Subtitles
    English, French, German, Czech, Polish, Hungarian, Dutch, Portuguese, Turkish, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Bulgarian
  Extras
  • 2 Cast/crew biographies
  • Production notes

Uncle Buck

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment/Sony Pictures Home Entertainment . R4 . COLOR . 96 mins . PG . PAL

  Feature
Contract

John Hughes, writer, and sometimes director of such eighties teen classics as 16 Candles, Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Beuller’s Day Off and my personal favourite - the much overlooked Some Kind of Wonderful, provides us with a light-hearted look at the mechanics of parenthood through the eyes of a career bachelor.

"He's crude. He's crass. He's family. "

John Candy stars as a middle-aged, overweight, unemployed dropout who, at very short notice, has to give up his cushy life style to look after his brother's three kids during a family emergency. Not to be fazed by his complete inexperience with domestic duties, or even the intricacies of child rearing, the brash and streetwise Buck dives head-long to his new role. Despite being an instant hit with the tiny-tots, his unconventional approach does not meet with the approval of his eldest niece Tia (Jean Kelly), a 15 year old with a big chip on her shoulder and suffering from an acute lack of parental attention. A battle of wills develops, with Buck attempting to prevent Tia from a regrettable sexual liaison with her horny boyfriend 'Bug', whilst he himself attempts to win back his own estranged lady love.

Characteristically, this is truly light stuff from Hughes. The story is predictable, and the character development is basically non-existent. And yet, in signature style, Hughes manages to maintain a good stream of laughs whilst establishing a good deal of pathos for the main characters (with help from the universally likable Candy). There are some truly funny moments, with some good running gags and the odd set piece keeping the viewer constantly entertained.

As usual Candy is on top form, putting in a warm performance as the likeable Buck and generating his laughs with ease. In contrast, the supporting cast is largely forgettable. An exception is Amy Madigan, completely wasted here as Buck's long suffering girlfriend. Interestingly, we also get a glimpse of how funny the young MacCaulay Culkin could have been before Hughes and Co. reduced him to a facial expression in the soon to follow Home Alone.

  Video
Contract

Whilst not superb, this is a good transfer from Universal that suffers somewhat from shortcomings in the source material. Colours are well balanced and vibrant throughout, with good flesh tones and black level. The image exhibits a small yet constant amount of film grain, noticable mainly during darker scenes. As a result, shadow detail does suffer somewhat and is quite variable. The print used for the transfer looks quite clean with no obvious film artefacts and the only MPEG artefact that caught my eye was the slight posterisation of one smokey scene. The image is very sharp, exhibiting many instances of quite annoying aliasing - Buck's plaid jacket looks almost alive. Apart from the aliasing, this is a reasonable job from Universal, given the obvious shortcomings in the source material.

  Audio
Contract

Five soundtracks are provided, English, French, Spanish and Italian in Dolby Digital Surround, and German in Dolby Digital 2.0. At all times the dialogue is clear and nicely integrated, and audio sync is never an issue. Uncle Buck is primarily a dialogue-based comedy and therefore the front sound-stage predominates. However, the surrounds are utilised now and then to carry a portion of the score and for the odd ambient noise. The subwoofer is used sparingly, but effectively, roaring to life for the signature backfiring of Buck's car, and the old slapstick 'bowling ball striking skull' routine. All in all this isn't a reference sound track, but it's adequate and provides a reasonable compliment to the film.

  Extras
Contract

With a single-sided single-layer presentation of Uncle Buck, Universal haven't left much room for extras. What we do get is two text-based additions:

Production Notes: The kind of stuff sometimes included in a separate booklet. 19 pages of quite interesting information concerning the development and shooting of the film including locations, set design and so on. In my opinion a great addition to any disc.

Cast & Crew Bios: Career summaries for John Candy and Amy Madigan. Information for Director John Hughes is curiously absent. Maybe they ran out of space on the disc?

The menus are static and silent, with Universal again employing their standard icon scheme. There aren't enough bad things that can be said about these garish, cryptic and all-round crappy icons, which lend all the disks they grace a totally amateurish feel. Who came up with these anyway?

Compared to the R1 disc, we lose out on some 'Film Highlights' - whatever that means (anyone got the R1 disc? let us know!) but we gain two extra languages (Italian and German), and a whole heap of subtitles.

  Overall  
Contract

Like most of John Hughes' recent films, Uncle Buck represents a night of entertainment and laughs for the whole family. Most will find something to like in this warm, laugh-out-loud comedy, and no matter how hard I try I just can't help popping it back in the player for another spin. In my mind, there's nothing funnier than little kids swearing (not badly I promise), clowns getting pulverized, and snooty primary school principals getting a taste of their own medicine. The DVD is another bare-bones release from Universal, but well worth checking out.


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      And I quote...
    "... is there anything funnier than little kids swearing, clowns getting pulverized, and snooty primary school principals getting a taste of their own medicine?"
    - Gavin Turner
      Review Equipment
    • DVD Player:
          Toshiba SD-2108
    • TV:
          Panasonic TC-68P90A TAU (80cm)
    • Receiver:
          Yamaha RX-V795
    • Amplifier:
          Yamaha RX-V795
    • Speakers:
          B&W 602
    • Centre Speaker:
          B&W CC6 S2
    • Surrounds:
          JM Lab Cobalt SR20
    • Subwoofer:
          B&W ASW-500
    • Audio Cables:
          Standard Optical
    • Video Cables:
          Standard Component RCA
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