Howard Deutch isn’t a name that you might hear all the time but he’s done a few very well-respected movies over the course of his career. As a director, he’s someone that appears to have a pretty decent sense of humor but isn’t afraid to get a little gritty and a little silly at the same time. Some of his movies have been a little too nuts to really get into since the hokey feeling they give is a little uncomfortable for some folks, while it’s perfect for others. But one element that’s kind of seen in a lot of his movies is that the couple that winds up together, usually at the end of the movie, tend to be a bit mismatched for a while, at least in terms of who wants who and what their motivation is for getting together. He slams his opposite characters together in a manner that causes sparks to fly in the setting of the movie, and the result is usually that he ends up with a very spectacular explosion that turns into something that people can’t help but think is impressive, and entirely effective.
Here are five of Howard Deutch’s best movies.
5. The Replacements
When the fictitious Washington Sentinels go on strike along with other teams in the league, the owner has to bring in an old coach and replacement players, guys that have the skills but were never given a shot at the pros for one reason or another. The team is essentially a group of misfits that hail from different areas and are at first almost impossible to bring together as a team. But when the pros decide to mock and berate them for losing a game the team comes together behind their quarterback and finds a way to start winning, eventually getting the team into the playoffs as the pros decide to come back.
4. Grumpier Old Men
If the first movie left people gasping for breath after laughing so hard, the second is bound to have them needing a blast of oxygen since it only gets funnier when Sophia Loren is added in. Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau were great in this movie, and Burgess Meredith was his rascally old self as he went about pursuing the mother of the character that Loren plays. Much like the first movie, it’s a story of two men that are constantly bickering with one another in the funniest of ways, and of course, the pursuit of love as Max was finally allowed to find someone that he could share his life with.
3. The Great Outdoors
As one of the great classics and one of the best John Candy movies out there, this one stands out as one of the funniest as well. When Chet Ripley decides to take his family on a trip into the wilderness they’re unexpectedly joined by his in-laws, whom he can’t stand. Instead of being allowed to just enjoy a nice calm, reasonable family vacation he’s subjected to enough bumps and bruises to make someone swear off vacationing for a long, long time since the things that Roman, played by Dan Aykroyd, puts Chet through are more than enough to think of how many different ways there are to ‘lose’ a person in the woods.
2. Pretty in Pink
The whole belief that a rich kid would be ridiculed for hanging out with or asking a poor kid to prom is something that usually feels destined to belong to the movies since when asking anyone else it’s more likely that someone will hear that it doesn’t happen. Either people don’t want to admit that it happens or it just doesn’t happen, but the movie is one of those that make a lot of people think that high school is a hellscape of emotions that one should be glad to get through eventually. But in the end, at least Andie and Blane end up getting together, and even Duckie appears to find someone that might be interested in him.
1. Some Kind of Wonderful
The high school hierarchy is something that must have existed at one time, or it’s simply too much fun to avoid parodying since a lot of directors have taken on this challenge and done fairly well. There’s nothing quite like pining for the person that you so desperately want to be with, even when there’s someone that’s been there for you and is desperately hoping that you’ll notice them. Then there’s the idea of what group you want to belong to, and the realization at one point it’s best just to get along with as many people as possible since the benefits of a life lived in such a manner is that the right folks will have your back when that time comes, while anyone else might find themselves outnumbered and outmaneuvered.
Sometimes the best stories are the ones that appear hopeless at first but turn out for the best.
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