CAPTAIN RON

title: CAPTAIN RON

year: 1991

cast: Martin Short, Kurt Russell

rating: **

Martin Short's greatest role was in "Three Amigos". He played a man who looked like a boy who acted like a teenager. Very fitting. But when he plays a husband/father, i.e. a typical guy, it just doesn't wash. This is one of many movies where a successful, hard-working but uptight businessman (Short) learns how to become a flake in order to be liked by his family. Kurt Russell (resembling a goofy-stoner Snake Plissken) is the title character who pilots a boat Short was left by his dead uncle. Short and his family has to sail from the Caribbean to Florida in order to sell the boat for a lot of money because it once belonged to Clark Gable, or something... And the scraggily, hopeless Ron is their only hope. Along this journey our heroes encounter smugglers, bad weather, and a bevy of semi-chuckle situations that keep this boat floating, but only in shallow waters.