Dutch (1991)

Dutch (1991)

6/10

Starring

Ed O'Neill

Ethan Randall

Directed by Peter Faiman

When Dutch kicks off, you’re left wondering how the movie will turn out. Maybe it’ll go the way you expect, or maybe it’ll bring with it many different angles you wouldn’t expect from a movie like this. Well, it did the latter. Dutch brought with it many angles to comedy that I didn’t expect, and even though it wasn’t a superb or great movie, I had fun watching it, and you will too.

Many of the things I saw while watching this 1991 movie—produced by John Hughes—were unexpected and things I hadn’t seen before. A lot of what happened on screen drove me into uncontrollable laughter. The cast, Ed O’Neill (Dutch) and Ethan Embry (Doyle), did a great job portraying two mismatched individuals trying to get home for the holidays.

The Dutch character was a total surprise in the movie, both in the way he handled himself and the way he was handled by Doyle, the child he’s supposed to care for. The two started a drive to California, which ended up being more like a hitchhiker’s journey than a straightforward road trip. The whole bonding thing between the two didn’t look like it was going to happen as the movie pulled closer to the end of its cool ride. However, in the ending, we witnessed a strong bond forming and a firm eye-opener for Doyle’s character.

Dutch is about a spoiled child who lives with his mother. She’s divorced from his father, who is also spoiled and filthy rich. The mother is now dating a man named Dutch, who is willing to do anything to get closer to her. To achieve this, he volunteers to pick up her son, Doyle, from school and drive him home because Doyle’s father claims he’ll be traveling for the holidays.

The bonding session started with an attack on Dutch, which led to him tying Doyle up and dragging him to the car.

The journey, which was meant to be a joyride, ended up being a disaster, and we’re privileged to see how Dutch plans to break the kid and how the kid plans to break Dutch. Dutch has bad ratings on Rotten Tomatoes from critics, but the audience poll on it was much better. When it came to financial returns, the movie was a flop back in 1991.

Well, it’s a rare privilege of a movie and one I enjoyed seeing this festive season.