Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (1987) * * * 1/2

Directed by: John Hughes

Starring: Steve Martin, John Candy

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles is not only a road/buddy movie, but it's sort of an unofficial Thanksgiving classic. Its stars play road warriors who want to get home for Thanksgiving, but yet the weather and the aforementioned modes of travel have other ideas.   However, this movie is not only very funny, but also very moving, especially in how it deals with John Candy's Del Griffith.

Del is a traveling salesman who says, "I haven't been home in years."   One can actually believe that when you see the gigantic trunk he lugs with him when he travels.   During a trip from New York to Chicago two days before Thanksgiving, he encounters Neal Page (Martin), who is the opposite of Del in virtually every way.  Del is a large bundle of energy dressed in multiple layers of clothing.   He is friendly, perhaps overly so, to the point in which Neal dresses him down in a classic motel room scene.  How much does Del talk?   Neal says, "I can tolerate any insurance seminar. I can let them go on and on with a huge smile on my face.   They'll ask me how I can stand it. I'd say because I've been with Del Griffith, I can take anything."   However, you can sense that the years of road travel have left Del as a lonely soul who only wants to please and find someone to talk to.

Martin's Neal is a well-to-do advertising executive who dresses sharply and is neatly groomed.  He would rather be left alone.   Pleasing people is certainly not on his agenda.   It's almost fitting that he would stuck in bad travel situations with Del and maybe even poetic justice.   No matter what, he can't seem to shake Del and that may turn out to be good thing.   He needs someone like Del to show him that he too needs others, more than he even realizes.

I suppose these underlying themes are what makes Planes, Trains and Automobiles better than the average road/buddy picture.   Make no mistake, this movie has plenty of funny scenes and many of them grow out of personalities rather than contrivances.   For instance, the scene in which Neal and Del wind up driving on the wrong side of the highway and ignore warnings from another driver.   It wouldn't have been funny if they simply went the wrong way and encountered trouble.   Instead, the scene builds on a series of misunderstandings and even a bit of arrogance from Del and Neal. "He's drunk," says Del, "How does he know where we're going?" Neal agrees, which may be one of the few times he agrees with Del and he may regret that he did.

The movie was released in 1987 and it comes before the age of cell phones and the Internet.   I don't think the movie would work if it is remade and set in today's world.  Because there are no cell phones or Internet, guys like Del and Neal have to communicate more and thus learn about each other and themselves.   Martin and Candy prove not only to be talented comedians, but also actors with range and depth to handle not only the comedy but the underlying drama.