Cryer's trite game of hide and seek

HIDING OUT (1987)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

A hopelessly dopey stockbroker, Andrew Morenski (Jon Cryer, who is hopelessly miscast), is involved in some shady bonds sold to mobsters. Rather than testify against the mob, for fear of being killed after his messy police protection fails, he hides out at his old high-school grounds. Andrew shaves his beard, opts for two-toned colored hair, gives away his expensive Italian jacket for a regular coat from a bum, and decides to enroll as a high-school student despite being nearly 30-years-old. Why? I can't say except he feels he can remain more elusive from hit men and the police if he pretends to be a student. This makes sense since Jon Cryer is more convincing as a high-school student than a stockbroker (only a year earlier, he played a high-school student in "Pretty in Pink."). Andrew gets help from his young cousin (Keith Coogan), falls in love with a 17-year-old senior (Annabeth Gish), and unwillingly runs for Student President! Oh, yes, he also befriends the school janitor who was a former boxing champion.

"Hiding Out" never fleshes out its comic potential, not even a little. The idea of reliving your high-school years  could have been prime comic material and lent a little gravitas to the narrative. But no, the screenwriters keep obstructing their premise with a teen romance subplot that, while cute for a while especially a roller-skating sequence, tested my patience. Wouldn't a 17-year-old sense that this Andrew is not what he is cracked up to be? The subplot involving the hit men also tested my patience, and so did Andrew's consistent whining about his other stockbroker buddies. I could care less about them because, for an alleged comedy, there should be the dramatic situations in high school where Andrew tries to persuade the students that he is a student too - you know, some comic hijinks that Jon Cryer was born to play. The movie just gives us students who never assume Andrew isn't who he says he is - they accept him wholeheartedly. So does Annabeth Gish's father whom Andrew provides tax relief advice. Does the father think something is up? No, not at all. All high-school students are born accountants, I suppose.

"Hiding Out" misses out on comic opportunities, left and right. It never establishes the main character in any real jeopardy from what should've been a comically chaotic and hopeless situation. Instead we get a violent opening and a dramatically violent finish that are at odds with, again, the comedy that we expect. I like Cryer's scene where he antagonizes a history teacher over the pros and cons of President Nixon, or when he is inspired to call himself "Maxwell Hauzer" after the coffee brand. Two decent jokes in a movie that is more inert and cutesy than inspired, filled with occasional bursts of violence from some other bad movie. Grade D for derivative.