Review Recall: Harry and the Hendersons
I apologise in advance, today’s Review Recall might not be the Pulitzer Prize winning drivel that you’re used to. I’m heading out to a party tonight after a busy weekend. However, I did manage to watch Harry and the Hendersons last night so I thought I’d do a quick RR before getting my crazy on. Today we’re heading to 1987 to meet a rather large ape and I’m not talking about John Lithgow.
The Plot: George Henderson is an outdoorsy kind of guy, but only if he can use his hi-tech cooking equipment and shoot anything that moves. On the way home from a family camping trip George hits a large animal. On further inspection, he discovers that it wasn’t an animal, but the legendary Bigfoot.
George’s first reaction is to kill the beast and get incredibly rich off the discovery. After taking it home the Bigfoot wakes and starts to terrorize George and his family. Instead of shooting the beast George has a change of heart and names the Bigfoot Harry. With Harry being as big as he is it’s almost impossible to keep him under wraps especially with Jacques Lafleur (David Suchet) on the hunt and the neighbourhood in a Bigfoot hunting frenzy.
The Film: What I remember from my childhood Harry and the Hendersons is a friendly family entertainment movie about a Bigfoot and a family. You can imagine my surprise when re-watching thefilm I find out the film is filled with profanity. There are S bombs and B bombs, everything but the F and C bomb, adding a more adult tone to the film.
Yes there is a fantasy element to the film, but a kid’s film this is not? OK Harry is pretty funny and definitely appeals to children, but the subject matter, theme and language does contrast the ‘family entertainment’ label that the film has attached to it. This leads me to my biggest problem of the movie.
I don’t think the film itself quite knows its audience. To me Harry and the Hendersons feels like a script that should be an adult fantasy film, but was repackaged to suit a more family audience. That would be fine with me, but I don’t think the repackaging of the film was done to the full, leaving Harry feeling like six of one and half a dozen of the other.
The Performances: That being said, I don’t hate the film, quite the opposite really. John Lithgow is as great as always as man of the house George Henderson. At Screenwriting School we were told ‘make your protagonist an asshole’ and Lithgow is definitely an asshole to begin with.
However, David Suchet steals the show as Jacques Lafleur who plays psychotic hunter madman as well as he does a Belgian detective.
Verdict: Not as great as I remember, but still has a certain charm. Who doesn’t want a Bigfoot as a pet? 5.5/10
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Until next time, enjoy the Show
Daniel Morris
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