Movie Review: Back to School (1986)
Synopsis: After his second marriage leads to a divorce, wealthy businessman Thornton Melon decides to attempt to reconnect with his son, Jason, a freshman at Grand Lakes University. When Jason tells him he intends to drop out of college, Thornton, who didn't graduate high school, convinces him to stay enrolled by making a massive financial donation to the university so he can be a college freshman too. However, while Jason is there to learn, Thornton is more interested in partying and using his money to pass his classes. This leads to a conflict between father and son, especially when Jason is led to believe Thornton bribed his diving coach to give him a spot on the team.
Who's in it? The movie stars Rodney Dangerfield, Sally Kellerman, Keith Gordon, Robert Downey, Jr. and Ned Beatty.
Review: My wife and I celebrated our wedding anniversary yesterday by visiting some Wisconsin wineries. During one of the visits, we were told one of the wines was named after the "Triple Lindy" dive from the movie Back to School, which was filmed at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. Since my wife had never seen the movie and it had been quite a few years since I last watched it, we ended our anniversary with the film.
As it turns out, while I've never considered myself a huge Rodney Dangerfield fan, the movie was a lot better than I remembered.
I think the thing that makes this movie work is it creates a Rodney Dangerfield character, Thornton Melon, who basically is Rodney Dangerfield. In other words, the film focuses on his style of comedy and builds the plot around it. That worked so much better than movies that try to turn a famous comedian into something they aren't.
What surprised me more when re-watching this were the number of recognizable faces that were in this movie, to the point it could almost be a who's who of the 80s. This included Dangerfield, Beatty, Downey, Jr., Kellerman, Sam Kinison, Burt Young, to name a few. Downey Jr., especially stood out as Jason's (Gordon) roommate, Derek, stealing a few scenes and making me wish they would have done a spin-off movie focusing just on him.
There are some parts of the movie that are a little over the top, such as Thorton's dorm room remodeling and, of course, the Triple Lindy dive at the end. However, since it was a comedy that never once tried to take itself too seriously, they weren't anything that hurt the film.
My only real complaint was Thornton's main nemesis, Professor Barbay (Paxton Whitehead), didn't really work as a villain, at least in my opinion. Yes, the movie went out of its way to make him seem a bit too high brow and stuffy, especially when compared to Thornton. However, he also wasn't wrong about the questionable ethics of letting a high school dropout buy his way into a prestigious college or believing Thornton should be expelled for cheating on his midterms. In other words, was he really the villain in this story?
Final Opinion: This is a funny, entertaining movie with a great cast and a good plot. I enjoyed re-watching it and would recommend giving it a chance.
My Grade: A
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Here are some reviews of other movies from 1986:
Movie Review: Flight of the Navigator (1986)
Movie Review: Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
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