This film sort of reminds me of the film "Over the Top" without the sweaty men arm wrestling and smacking themselves to psyche up for their next match. This is a very good thing. This film is also a comedy and not an overly serious drama, sorry but a travel film such as this should be a comedy rather than a sappy drama. This film does get sappy here and there, but not as bad as that one. The reason I compare the two is because it has two men going after a military kid on behalf of the mother. Granted the mother was dying in "Over the Top" I still find the two similar. This one has O'Neil of "Married With Children" fame as the new boyfriend of a mom. He offers to go pick up her son at a military type school so that they can bond. Well things of course do not go as planned as you end up with a bit of a crazy trip. Though nowhere near as crazy as the trip John Candy and Steve Martin had in "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles." The kid has a bit of a problem with his mom and worships his dad, who is actually a bit of a stand offish type, not really involving himself in his son's life other than the phone call promising he will be there for sure next time type. The comedy is rather good, but it suffers from its similarities to the superior "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles" movie. You see some of the same jokes, however they don't have the edge of that movie. Still, it is a tolerable enough flick though they kind of made fun of it on "Married with Children" as the wife spots the movie on sale at a really low price an she kind of dismisses it completely. However, I do not think it is worthy of that kind of scorn as it has some good moments, "Over the Top" on the other hand deserves its scorn.
