Dan Aykroyd: 5 Awesome Performances & 5 That Sucked

2. Pa Tex - North (1994)

There are people who will tell you that North doesn't deserve the bashing it got from the likes of Roger Ebert; that it deserves secondary appraisal and a more open mind. Those people are morons who should be stripped of their opinion privilege.

It's a comedy without jokes, a Rob Reiner film without his characteristic humanist appeal, and a supposedly heart-warming family tale without sympathy, heart, imagination or appeal. The premise is nasty and vindictive and Aykroyd's part - of a garish Texan looking to replace his dead son with North - should have offered balance and a commentary on a deeply sympathetic tragedy. Instead, you can't feel anything but abject disdain for him: he's a cartoon who probably deserved to have his life ruined, and the sooner he's off screen the better.

Unfortunately, he's then replaced by a succession of racial stereotypes and terribly written caricatures who force themselves through jokes that never work towards a resolution that really isn't worth the effort to get to.