‘Bushwhacked’ No Walk In The Park
A comedy-adventure in the dumb-dumber mode, “Bushwhacked” doesn’t pretend to be squeaky-clean, wholesome family entertainment.
Instead, this high-pitched but ultimately harmless late summer entry opts for an unmistakably juvenile brand of humor laced with some surprisingly rugged derring-do.
Daniel Stern is Max Grabelski, a goofball courier who is set up for an apparent murder and finds himself going incognito as a reluctant troop leader for a ragtag bunch of adventure-starved ranger scouts.
Along their northwestern wilderness trail they encounter everything from perilous precipices to raging rapids to nasty villains, only to pass their collective rite of passage with flying colors.
Director Greg Beeman (“Mom and Dad Save the World”) gets optimum mileage out of the film’s numerous sight gags, but manages to impress with some unexpectedly tense action sequences whether his heroes are making like Stallone in “Cliffhanger” or like Streep in “The River Wild” against some awesome Lake Tahoe terrain.
Overgrown kid Stern, whose manic, wide-eyed likability is given maximum exposure here, essentially reprises his doofus “Home Alone” character, but after several more cups of coffee.
He finds a comically cranky adversary in old pro Jon Polito as a shifty, wheezing FBI agent; while Anthony Heald brings a patented slick iciness to the role of the cold-blooded heavy.
xxxx “Bushwhacked” Locations: Lincoln Heights, North Division and Showboat cinemas. Credits: Directed by Greg Beeman, starring Daniel Stern, Jon Polito, Brad Sullivan, Ann Dowd, Anthony Heald, Tom Wood Running time: 1:30 Rating: PG-13