Things I Learned From Movie X
Home Alone 2: Lost In New York
By Edwin Davies
December 22, 2011
To give a sense of just how violently sadistic Kevin is, let's look at the first thing he does to Marv when he and Harry arrive at the house. He drops a brick on his head. Actually, he doesn't drop it, he THROWS it, and not only does he throw it, he does so from the fifth story of a house. Even though this really should have killed Marv instantly, or at the very least have given him severe brain damage and completely destroyed his basic motor functions, Kevin keeps doing it, and winds up hitting Marv in the head four times. (Though, in a nod to realism, after the third brick Marv is rendered almost incoherent by the blunt trauma he has endured.) That's the *first* thing he does to him. From there on in it's a litany of abuse and sadism which includes, but is not limited to, Harry having a whole bag of tools dropped on his head, Marv getting several thousand volts of electricity sent through his body, and Harry having his head set on fire, which he then sticks into a toilet filled with kerosene.
Basically, Harry and Marv should have died a dozen times over the course of the film, and the fact that they don't highlights the major problem that Home Alone 2 has with its tone; the violence is meant to be cartoonish, but the responses to that violence are anything but. Oscar-winner Joe Pesci and TV Land Award for Favorite Heard-But-Not-Seen Character-nominee Daniel Stern really make you feel every impact, which makes the violence kind of hard to dismiss as cartoonish. If they brushed each attack off like they were in a Three Stooges short, there would be no problem, but since they really seem to be feeling it, the film feels a bit sour and misanthropic, especially since they just keep struggling to their feet and asking for more. It makes you wonder if there was a whole stream of murders in the '90s caused by kids thinking that dropping a 200 pound sandbag onto their babysitter's head would have limited ill effects.
By the time that Kevin runs off to phone the cops, he's subjected Harry and Marv to such an ordeal that it seems less like he is asking for help than he is calling to gloat about the two men he has killed, and to taunt the harried detectives desperately trying to stop his rampage. That the film ends with his father discovering that Kevin has spent hundreds of dollars on room service, almost certainly ruining his family's carefully balanced finances, only confirms that Kevin McCallister can sit comfortably alongside Tom Ripley as one of the truly great sociopaths of cinema.
So, as you tuck into your turkey on Christmas day, remember this; Kevin McCallister is still out there. He was never caught, and he is waiting for you to fall into his den of tricks. I hope you all have a Merry Christmas, because if Kevin has anything to say about it, it will be your last.
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