Le maître des lieux

Say what you want about Chevy Chase. He may be a jerk in real life, he may have made very poor career choices in the early 90's but regardless of these issues why do most people forget that during the late 70's and all the way through the 80's he made truly great comedic films?

Starting with Foul Play in 1978, which was a great film, he started the 80's off strong and aside from a few bombs remained a consistently funny guy in great movies for the decade. Caddyshack, Seems like Old Times two great National Lampoon's Vacation films aside from European Vacation which I disliked and I liked Vegas Vacation but am omitting it here as it came out in 1997, then he went on to Fletch, Three Amigos and Funny Farm his most underrated and in my opinion best film after Vacation #1. All great movies all hold up really well today.

Then Chevy kept rolling in the 90's but audiences didnt want to follow him on his journey. He joined his good friend Dan Aykroyd starting off the 90's with the bomb Nothing But Trouble, Memoirs of an Invisible Man followed the next year and then his biggest travesty was his horrible and horribly panned late night talk show on Fox which was cancelled after one season.

1994 was another weak year for him with Cops and Robbersons. Chevy did however find a bit of grace and audiences warming up to him a little bit with this 1995 flick, it was his only true hit of the 90's along with the aforementioned Vegas Vacation.

Now I am not here to convince you this is a great film in the same league with his great aforementioned 70s and 80s films. It really has the feel of a TV movie.

But this is a fun film for kids nonetheless. Chevy and Farrah Fawcett (who was mostly a time capsule sex symbol from the 70's by this point) have good chemistry and he may not have the same chemistry he did with Tim Allen on Home Improvement but Chevy and Jonathan Taylor Thomas play off of each other well here.

This was a kids movie and was always intended to be. For a 90's kids movie Nostalgia trip its a lot of fun. But it's not Chevy at his very best and I think even his fans knew when the 90's came his movies were just not going to be as good as they were in the previous decades. Similar case with director Francis Ford Coppola. He may have had a few hits in the 80's and 90's but would never make anything as good again as the first two Godfathers and Apocalypse Now.

If you like Chase or any of the other cast members (George Wendt, Norm from Cheers is good here in a supporting role), it is worth a watch.

It's no classic but it's a fun 90's movie that proves Chase can make worthy movies with the right script, direction and cast. He also plays it fairly straight here, so if you got tired of his sarcasm and wisecracks in trh 70's and 80's you might really like this film a lot.

Chevy Chase gives an amiable performance as a prosecuting attorney who falls in love with artist Farrah Fawcett (who looks as great as ever). But she already has an 11 year old son (Jonathan Taylor Thomas) whose father ran out on the family. So the kid is wary of letting ANY man into his mothers' life, especially when the mom & child have gotten along perfectly well by themselves for years. Thomas schemes to eliminate Chase from his & Fawcetts' lives, and thinks that when he and Chase join the Indian Guides, Chase will get fed up and quit. But Chase digs in his heels and refuses to do so.

"Man of the House" is an admittedly lightweight, formula-bound family comedy that does at least have good messages in it about learning to have faith in other people. It benefits from some entertainingly quirky characters, like perfectionist Red Sweeney (Art La Fleur) and mute circus performer Lloyd Small (physical comedian David Shiner); both of them and their sons are part of the group.

A major subplot has to do with a mafia goon (Richard Portnow) who wants revenge on Chase since the attorney was able to send his father away for half a century. But being that this IS a Disney family comedy, this material never gets too intense, and Portnows' associates (Peter Appel, Richard Foronjy) are portrayed as bumblers.

In addition to those character actors mentioned, other notable performers such as Chief Leonard George, Ron Canada, John DiSanti, and the ever-endearing George Wendt all put in appearances. The cast is generally good, with young Thomas and his fellow child actors giving appealing performances. The plotting and the gags DO tend to be pretty predictable, but overall the movie works pretty well. Likability and good vibes do help to make up for the formulaic nature of the script, as well as the universal aspect of learning to accept step-parents and step-children in ones' lives.

Six out of 10.

I can remember loving this movie back in the '90s. I recently rewatched it and still thought it was a pretty good movie. The cast had some really big names (for the time), a number of jokes seemed like it pushed the "Disney limits", and well....Chevy Chase. Going back after all these years to watch Man of the House, you notice how '90s the film really is. From video games, to clothing, and hairstyles, it's full of nostalgia. Man of the House is right in the mix of Disney's mid-90s push for live action movies like Heavyweights, Mighty Ducks, and The Santa Clause.

* Join my journey of watching every Walt Disney Studios film. All videos selected at random from the official D23 film list. (Included: Muppets, Pixar, Star Wars) (Excluded: Marvel, Touchstone, Fox, and Other Studios)

I watched this today for the first time in years. As a kid during the 90s, I loved this flick. My best friend and I had a HUGE crush on JTT. As an adult, I think the movie is pretty cute but it brings back memories of being a nine year old laughing my butt off and going home looking through my Teen Beat magazine. This movie needs to be appreciated for the 90s movie it was. It's unfortunate people who cry about cultural appropriation try to ruin it for those of us who loved it as kids.

I'm just now watching this on TV, and find it an enjoyable but fairly standard Disney type plot, with the usual misunderstandings based on lack of communication. Eventually justice will triumph, I'm sure, with all the usual civilian-vs-bad-guy showdown and broken-relationships-cemented stereotypes, still enjoyable to watch in each new screenplay. I mainly wanted to comment on a cute cameo that I didn't find mentioned anywhere. At the very beginning of the film, establishing the relationship of Farah Fawcett and her son, he mentions how she dated a few guys but they were all losers. They show a few seconds of one of these dates, with the fellow clowning around at the beach. If you watch closely you will see it is Ryan O'Neal!