Why Uncle Buck doesn't work

I am taking a holiday from the 'doesn't make sense' format, which I didn't even think would become so easy to do, but movies make so little sense, it's super easy, barely.. a chore.

I always wanted to like this movie. This kind of thing is one of the most heartbreaking in life, because you see others enjoy something, you want to enjoy it, but you see something others apparently don't, so you can't, so you won't.

I absolutely adore John Candy (as well as Chris Farley - what is it about these fat guys that make them so lovable?), I love many of John Hughs' movies (though I still can't figure out what people see in 'The Breakfast Club' - there is no breakfast, there is no club, and there's barely a 'the'. Not to mention any kind of actual story)..

..so why is this movie such a weird anomaly?

I honestly don't even have a full answer, but this movie rubs me the wrong way almost from the beginning to the end.

One reason is that John Candy is not as good as the main character (especially protagonist), as he is as a funny, quirky side character. The problem with protagonist is that they have to be straight, clean, good, relatable and so on. A protagonist can't be too funny or too quirky, or they can't be taken seriously and they lack relatability.

Well, unless you are Jim Carrey or something, and the movie is a straightforward comedy, that is.

John Hughs' movies have the problem of trying to be too many things at once, so they spread themselves too thin. It somehow works with Planes, Trains and Automobiles, because Steve Martin plays his comedy part very straight as a grumpy a-hole, so John Candy is free to be wacky, while the story still holds a semblance of believability.

But when you have a semi-serious story that tries to also be a bit comedic, things become different, and when your protagonist in such a story is a 'WTF' instead of something you can pinpoint and lock onto, like 'funny, big-hearted, clumsy oaf' or 'weak-willed and scared amusement park guard', it's hard to make it work.

It's very difficult to know what to make of Uncle Buck, the character. One moment, he's a boring, weak simp for some ugly monster (sigh), another moment, he's playing a wild, crazy murderer psycho with hatchets and chainsaws or whatever it was.

He tries to be the 'head of the family everyone can look up to', but then he talks about rat gnawing off someone's mole, after trying to clumsily pee in a children's toilet (I don't call something a BATHroom, unless it exists mainly for bathing purposes and has an actual bath in it).

The juxtaposition between his different side personalities make him appear a schizo that no one can really relate to. Is he a magical, powerful guy that can solve all the family's problems, or is he a wacky goofy doofus like Kramer, that just falls a lot and has quirky ideas and personality?

Is he a strong protector of women (somehow women are stronger than men but can also be victims immediately, when the situation suits them), and a skilled PUA, or is he a simp that doesn't know what he's doing?

What is his awful, smelly, loud car with that 'convenient exhaustion explosion' supposed to signify? That he doesn't care about hygiene, he's a loony, a drunkard, etc.?

He's shown to have most unhealthy habits, as in smoking, eating too much and so on, but then we are supposed to think he is a good role model?

Instead of using proper methods for handling kids and teenagers, as we have seen in Supernanny, this guy always puts on some kind of act or gimmick.

Look, I don't mind the storyline of 'a stranger came to fix our family and was then gone', as in Mary Poppins or something, but it just doesn't work here, because John Candy has to be seen as a goofball and as a strong protagonist at the same time.

You can't make fried ice, you can't have John Candy in a 'straight' role like this, because it becomes confusing, when you see him as a goofball, then he does some 'protagonist' things you are supposed to take seriously. You can't ever even know if this character is supposed to be strong or weak, because you are shown both.

The way he gains the teenager's respect, is most idiotic and unrealistic. What if the boyfriend had been a good guy? Why are these guys always made into such unredeemable horndogs? Can't we ever show a boyfriend be realistic? Either a thug that wouldn't be intimidate by a fat, goofy nerd with a hatchet, or a Linux nerd that the woman would only be dating to annoy someone..

In any case, you watch this movie, you try to get a handle on Uncle Buck as a character, and you leave the movie confused and baffled, because you could never do it. Buck is SO many very different things in this movie, I am starting to think Hughes wanted to give this character a secret schizophrenia or something. Yeah yeah, it's called something else nowadays, but not back then..

Heck, I wouldn't be surprised to hear Buck call himself Tyler Durden at times, his personality changes so much.