Une folle équipée

CARPOOL was produced by Warner Bros , a film studio with a long history of movie making . You'd think the studio heads would know what makes a successful entertaining film so couldn't have come up with something better than this ?

What's that old saying " Never work with children or animals " ? The studio broke one of the rules by employing children as main protagonists and while we don't have much in the way of animals we see another golden rule broken , the one that states " Never work with a duff script " . A man drives his children to school only to get kidnapped by a desperate robber . You probably think you've seen this premise a million times before but it's not really a plot that's been filmed all that many times , probably because it's so weak and obvious which leads me to be confused as to how it survived its pitch . I guess the studio must have been really short of good ideas that month . The already weak plot is brought done even more by the way the actors mug for the camera and the really weak situations: " You put the gun down - No you put the gun down " which means it's not really worth your time seeing

"Carpool" wasn't all that bad. I think Tom Arnold can be very funny at times and he came through here. The stars of this movie however were the children. They provide most of the laughs. Maybe my one quarrel with the film was Paymer's character's constant whining about being late for his meeting. The movie is nothing special, but its also not terrible. "Carpool" is harmless family fun.

Advertising executive Daniel Miller (David Paymer) is forced to drive their family carpool when Mrs. Miller (Stellina Rusich) becomes ill. Daniel is in the middle of a huge advertising campaign for Hammerman's, a large chain of delis, but reluctantly take on the carpool duties. The carpool includes Daniel's two sons, Andrew (Mikey Kovar) and Bucky (Micah Gardener), two local ladies; Chelsea (Colleen Rennison) and her older sister, Kayla (Rachael Leigh Cook), and local weirdo Travis (Jordan Warkol). Meanwhile, Franklin Laszlo (Tom Arnold) is the owner of a failing carnival out of desperation to keep his team of carnies and sideshow performers employed initiates a last ditch effort to raise capital by robbing a bank. Daniel stops at a local Hammerman's to get some pastries where by coincidence Franklin has also stopped off. Two gunmen, Neil (Ian Tracey) and Jerry (John Tench), proceed to rob the Hammerman's and through a series of misunderstandings off duty detective Lt. Erdman (Kim Coates) believes Franklin to be the robber and Daniel and the van full of kids become reluctant hostages to Franklin who makes it clear he has no intention of harming them and a chase around the city ensues.

Released during the mid-90s, Carpool marked the theatrical screenwriting debut of noted TV writer Don Rhymer who had worked on Evening Shade, Hearts Afire, and Fish Police just to name a few. The movie is directed by veteran comedy director Arthur Hiller, best known for films such as 1978's The In-Laws with Alan Arkin and Peter Falk and the George C. Scott fronted dark comedy The Hospital. Carpool was part of a wave of broad family focused comedy films released throughout the 90s trying to tap into the zeitgeist that made Home Alone so successful often to diminishing returns. While Carpool was a financial failure on initial release and was skewered by critics, it's honestly an okay movie for what it is.

From the get go with its zippy soundtrack and exaggerated line deliveries the movie makes it pretty obvious this will be a broad slapstick farce. David Paymer plays an exaggerated whiner in Daniel Miller who constantly bemoans he's going to miss his important businessy business meeting at his place of business in what's basically the typical "workaholic dad" trope to a "T". The movie does try to balance it out with Tom Arnold's Franklin as a counterpoint to Daniel where he's so focused on being fun he neglected his responsibilities and the movie seems like it's trying to find some middle ground between the two extremes rather than just say "Dad should blow off work to spend time with his kids", but the movie never really develops that and pretty much falls back on the standard. But plot isn't the primary focus of this movie and it's more a showcase for over the top vehicular stunts and slapstick and to the movie's credit it does deliver. While the humor of Carpool is very broad its actors are all delivering the maximum amount of effort with Paymer committing to the tightly wound workaholic and Arnold committed to his fun loving larger than life accidental robber/hostage taker and the two of them play off well against the assortment of kid characters along for the ride. Kim Coates and Rhea Perlman have some fun energetic deliveries as a detective and meter maid respectively who are chasing the group. As with many comedies there are some "of the time" gags but they're never brazenly tasteless and are just kind of there (certainly haven't aged as awful as similar gags from other films).

Carpool is the type of middle of the road comedy that isn't aggressively obnoxious but it's also not that far above average either. I happen to like Tom Arnold so his delivery and comedic style did work for me personally. The movie's only about 89 minutes (including credits) so it never overstays its welcome and in terms of kid shenanigans movies Carpool may not be one of the best, but it's nowhere near the worst either.

This film was about what I was expecting, although perhaps a little better. I was surprised that things never got TOO stupid, but that's not to say that it wasn't a piece of fluff. There were a few times when I laughed, and I wasn't watching the clock all that much, but that is about as high as my praise can get for this movie. Basically, it's just another forgettable movie that is an adequate time killer, but has fairly little entertainment value.

Tom Arnold really shined in the movie,i've always liked him and it was great to see him get a leading role. David Paymer played the role of the 'all work, no pleasure,up tight dad' role very well. Even Mr.Hammermin was hilarious at the end when the group gave him slogans for their carnival project. The children played their roles well,with child innocence it's great to see grown people especially men bond with their kids and that's what I got from watching this movie... 7 out of ten!

~CWM~