Uncle Buck Reviews

The late John Candy, in what may be his most celebrated role, stars as the eponymous Buck. He's a painfully inept, irredeemable slob who becomes a most unlikely baby-sitter for eight-year-old Miles (Macaulay Culkin), six-year-old Maizy (Gaby Hoffman), and teenaged Tia (Jean Kelly) when Buck's brother and sister-in-law have to leave town to visit a sick relative. Supposedly ill-equipped to take care of children, Uncle Buck keeps Maizy and Miles amused and eventually wins the reluctant respect of Tia by protecting her from her creepy boyfriend. In the process, however, he nearly ruins his own eight-year relationship with Chanice (Amy Madigan). Mostly thanks to Candy's sympathetic performance, the film has become a video perennial; like many John Hughes films, however, it has a distinctly reactionary subtext--Buck proves his worth not so much by winning the hearts of the kiddies as by exerting patriarchal authority over Tia.