The 'Burbs

The 'Burbs (1989)

Runtime: 101 minutes

Directed by: Joe Dante

Starring: Tom Hanks, Bruce Dern, Rick Ducommun, Wendy Schaal, Carrie Fisher

From: Universal/Imagine Entertainment

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. I watched this movie last night; I had seen it before but that was a long time ago. It'll be gone from Netflix in a few days, so that's why I saw it at that time. I talk about it in my Letterboxd review below:

At the end of the month several films I have in my Netflix Instant queue will leave the service; I won't have the time to watch them all but I still wanted to see more than one of them. This movie is one of those that will soon be gone, maybe forever. I have watched this before but that was many years ago.

I presume many are familiar with the plot... if not, it's a dark comic look at typical suburban life. It's entirely set in a small neighborhood; the opening of the movie shows on a globe that it takes place in the American Midwest, Iowa to be more specific; it was mainly filmed on a studio lot. It appears to be an average neighborhood but you see that its denizens are all colorful characters. Ray (Tom Hanks) wishes to enjoy a week of vacation at home, but his new next door neighbors-the Klopek family-don't take care of the exterior and they are never seen. His paranoid pal Art (the late Rick Ducommun) and the ex-military Lieutenant Mark (Bruce Dern, who never not wears incredible clothing throughout; there's plenty of both camouflage and Hawaiian shirts) are convinced that something is very wrong with the Klopeks, and his friends really rile up poor Ray.

The movie is definitely uneven and I can't say it's great; yet, I still think it's fine and entertaining. Like I said it's full of colorful characters, from the leads to the strange neighbors, and there's even Corey Feldman, who plays the exact sort of character you'd expect Corey Feldman to play from about '85 to '90, meaning “a real smartass”. There are still plenty of laughs as typical suburban life is lampooned as really, who knows what your neighbors are like behind closed doors. This is like a wacky version of Rear Window, really.

There are other films from Joe Dante which I would rate higher (I just haven't watched any of them in the time I have been a member of this site), such as the Gremlins movies or The Howling but I still enjoy this entry in his filmography, as it is something different from the norm and it was nicely directed by him. There's also a great angry soliloquy from Hanks back in the day when he did these sorts of comedies rather than the “serious” movies he's done in the past 20 years plus.