Eighty minutes of fun, capped by a side-splitting last 20 minutes, raising several of the biggest cinema laughs in ages: the formula for a box-office blast from prolific writer John Hughes. And he just about gets away with the unlikely premise that triggers the story. After all, how do you adequately explain an eight-year-old boy being left alone by his parents when they fly off on a Christmas holiday to Paris? Well, you give his parents five kids, add brother-in-law's six, send little Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) to bed for being naughty, throw in a power failure that leaves everyone asleep when the vans arrive from the airport, leave Kevin the sleeping victim of a 'head count' that accidentally takes in the kid next door, top it off with a desperate run for the airport with kids in third class and the adults in first class, and hope the viewer will believe it. After this, the tale veers uneasily between France and America until burglars Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern come on to the scene to liven things up. Getting wise to their plans, Kevin decides to defend his home. How he does so leads to a series of violent jokes that make it no mere coincidence that a shaven-headed Pesci looks like a refugee from The Three Stooges. Be patient and, like Kevin, you'll have fun.

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