A young teenager decides to go on a trip without his parents consent by taking his fathers Porsche and since he'll be needing money he does creative stuffs to raise it.
Writer-director Paul Brickman can therefore be accused of trying to have it both ways, but there's no denying the stylishness and talent of his direction.
What distinguishes it, however, is that it's hovering permanently on the brink of stark, staring disaster in a way that strangely recalls The Graduate.
It's funny because it deals with subjects that are so touchy, so fraught with emotional pain, that unless we laugh there's hardly any way we can deal with them -- especially if we are now, or ever were, a teenage boy.
For writer/director Paul Brickman, this was a case of being in the right place at the right time and, perhaps most importantly, getting the right leading man in place.
