Rodney Dangerfield stars as a corporate tycoon who enrolls in college to help inspire his son (Christine‘s Keith Gordon) to stay in school. Now, I’m hard on comedies and I honestly don’t like very many of them — but I really enjoyed Back to School. It’s a terrific vehicle for Dangerfield and his direct, throw-away sensibility. When a stand-up comic is featured in a narrative film, the formulaic plot usually ends up constraining the talent and strangling all the fun out of the movie. But Back to School keeps things loose enough for Dangerfield to shine. It even allows him to keep his balls after the obligatory third-act character catharsis. (Learning lessons can be so castrating.)
