DUTCH (1991) *1/2 Sets forth the proposition that all we need to do to the boarding school set, as teenagers, to humanize them, is kidnap them, attack them with regularity, shoot them with stun guns, throw them in the back seat with prostitutes, make them eat at truck stops, make them sleep at homeless shelters and talk to black people, and make them hitchhike a little bit. Well, I dunno, but we gotta try something! The problem is that George W. Bush acts suspiciously like something like this happened to him, and it obviously did no good. Whatever. The problem with the film is that, although it postulates towards a gritty hyper-realism, it's simply too far-fetched to serve as anything except for some unimaginative self-made man's fantasy about teaching authentic manhood to those who look down on him. It's amazing that they didn't work the Bears into it somehow, and drinking Pabst. Ed O'Neill is a fun actor, and cast about right, but you can only interact so much with shadows and Ethan Randall isn't at all credible as he tries to turn good (as the intolerable snob he's fine, but that one takes little talent to pull off, or so many wouldn't even try). Ed's entirely glorious fireworks scene should be part of an instructional film on American culture.
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