Problem Child (1990)

Number Rolled: 13

Movie Name/Year: Problem Child (1990)

Genre: Comedy

Length: 81 minutes

Rating: PG

Director: Dennis Dugan

Writer: Scott Alexander, Larry Karaszewski

Actors: John Ritter, Amy Yasbeck, Michael Oliver, Jack Warden, Michael Richards, Gilbert Gottfried

I don’t care what anyone says. I loved this movie when I was a child and I love it even more now that I’m an adult. Granted, Gilbert Godfried is ridiculous and his voice makes me want to punch a kitten – but he is a very minor aspect of the movie. John Ritter played his part VERY well and Michael Oliver was fantastic – especially for a kid.

This movie shows an orphan with behavioral problems after being consistently abandoned by the people he is supposed to be able to trust. He acts out in horrible ways, while a family that was conned into adopting him attempts to cope. With a storyline like that, this movie could have easily been crap as a comedy and spectacular as a drama. Luckily, Dennis Dugan, Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski knew what they were doing. Putting it from the viewpoint of Junior, the orphan child, was also a very big risk that paid off.

In the end, the story is deeper than one would expect from a comedy of this sort, but almost expected of the director, Dennis Dugan, if you look at the films he worked on after this one such as: Big Daddy, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, The Benchwarmers and Grown Ups. All comedies that are relatively to extremely funny but with underlying lessons and deeper meanings than there seems.

All in all, I love the entire Problem Child series. Also, I’d love to know what became of Michael Oliver. Even IMDB pulled up nothing. Where is he now?

Overall Opinion – 4.5/5