Packin' It In

I found it on sale at a video store for a buck, so I checked it out.

It's not too bad. Kind of funny, really.

This movie is a little like Prisoners of Second Avenue or at least a 1980s made-for-tv version of Walden. It's good old get back to nature. Living in Los Angeles is hell for one family. The husband gets laid off after 17 years of working at his job, the teachers burn down the school, the daughter is dating a punker named Johnny Crud, the eleven year old son is taking up smoking, and there is toxic waste bubbling up from the bathtub.

So, when his neighbor decides that he has had enough of living in the city and packs up his family to live at a place called WoodCrest, this guy decides to do the same with his family.

But the country life is no blessing, and is also no easy adjustment. It doesn't help either when your neighbors are a bunch of wackos, specially the 'survivalist' family that lives in a bunker and hoards supplies, waiting for the day that an economic depression or a natural disaster or something will come and destroy everything.

But the family really wants to know if the city sucks and the country does too, then where is a great place to live?

Molly Ringwald is in it as the Valley Girl kind of kid. Sort of funny how she puts on the Valley Girl talk in her pre-country scenes.

It's really a like it or don't like movie, I guess.

The husband/wife team of Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss isn't famous for what's arguably their best effort - a television movie titled PACKIN' IT IN with a non-famous Molly Ringwald whose father... like the theatrical TEMPEST... is tired of the ordinary life, moving to a rural location: not an island but in this case, the woods...

As the family ventures to a better place to raise their kids and to breath the clear air, the jokes are quick and never forced while our hero provides the weak husband out of his element with ease. In one moment, before the big shift from L.A. to Oregon (or Washington?), Molly's boyfriend, a punker named Johnny Crud, repeats how life is basically for the birds, and Benjamin replies: "Crud, get a job!"

The opening stages back home seems like its very own episode - followed by the family's luck running dry in the mountainous town that's more of a survivalist camp and that, at one point, winds up without any food or supplies. Benjamin, and comic actors like him who aren't exactly the macho type, are all reminiscent of (and inspired by) Woody Allen, so Tony Roberts, as the family's best friend and eventual foil, fits right in...

Meanwhile, Paula Prentiss is her usual tomboyish, independent pretty, smart and clever gal; Molly and AIRPLANE child actor David Hollander are suburb brats and only annoying to their parents, not the audience...

And the passive yet fully effective scene stealer is the monotone son of Kenneth McMillan's survivalist a--hole, played by Sam Whipple. PACKIN' is a nearly perfect adventure, and you'll feel right there, out there, in the comedic nightmare of "bad things constantly happening to nice people" i.e. "a nice person,"which is basically a sub-genre in itself.

When I was a teen I saw this film on television. My parents loved it so much, they were happy they recorded it. Well, many decades later, I decided to try the film again. After all, I may still love it....or I might wonder why I liked it in the first place!

The story is about a couple who are sick of the city life and so they follow the lead of some friends and they move to rural Oregon....to rough it and live off the land. Unfortunately, the country life, like the city life, offers its own problems and they soon find they've exchanged the horrors of city life with the horrors of living among a group of weirdo survivalists.

While the idea of the film was very sound, it was far from subtle. Additionally, Richard Benjamin's character really doesn't seem like a real person as he's constantly spouting one-liners--much like having Bob Hope doing a walk-on instead of making him like a real human being. And, as the film progressed I noticed that too many folks were caricatures...not realistic characters. Now this didn't totally ruin the movie, but its broadness limited its effectiveness in entertaining the viewers. Overall, mildly amusing but a film that did not amuse me like it once did. A watchable time-passer but certainly no classic.



FYI--While the film was set in Oregon, it was actually filmed in British Columbia, Canada.

I first watched this movie back in the mid/late 80's, when I was a kid. We couldn't even get all the way through it. The dialog, the acting, everything about it was just beyond lame.

Here are a few examples... imagine these spoken real dramatically, way over-acted: "Oreegon? You're going to Oreegon? Why would anyone want to go to Oreegon?"

"Survivalists? Nobody ever told us about any survivalists!"

This movie was SO bad, my sister and I rented it again for her 16th birthday party, just so our friends could sit around and laugh at how awful it was. I don't think we were able to finish it then either!

...and I'm so disappointed because I can't seem to buy the DVD or VHS of it anywhere.

Its a kind of mix of, Uncle Buck and The Great Outdoors and Molly Ringwald is fabulous as the spoilt teenager. This was made when Molly was still a brunette, just before she hit the big time with Pretty In Pink.

I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who likes a good clean family comedy, with an edge!

If anyone has a copy of this, or knows where I can get one...please leave a message for me - it'll be much appreciated.