Home Alone 2: The Lost Files

In the film Home Alone, our hero Kevin McCallister is an eight year old boy in suburban Chicago who gets left behind by his family as they fly to Paris to celebrate Christmas with one of Kevin's uncles. Hijinks as well as tough lessons about family are learned and we all come out as better people. Everyone except the 'Wet Bandits' played by Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern. They end up in jail.

Guess what? The following year they decide that they are going to go to Florida to celebrate this Christmas. I'm sure that in the imaginary scenario following the first Home Alone debacle there were a lot of stupid in-jokes with the McCallister family. Perhaps a day after Christmas the family was going to go out to dinner. "BUT DON'T FORGET KEVIN" would say someone...and we'd all have a good old laugh. But as the months wore on the joke would wear thin. Until it was forgotten. Probably around August. But as Christmas slowly snuck back up on the McCallister's the jokes would come back. And now we're back to the night before the trip. Why this family (and extended family as there are many cousins and uncles involved) has to go travel another place the following year? I guess they just like playing with fate.

There is the playful self awareness as the two parents played by Catherine O'Hara and John Heard scream, "WE DID IT AGAIN" *CUE MONTAGE*

Anyhow Kevin isn't left behind perse, but rather boards the wrong plane due to a series of miscommunications and coincidences. Such as Kevin's dad and a random dude with similar build and hair color happen to be wearing the same coat. HOW WACKY. Upon the realization when Kevin hits the ground that he is alone and his family is in Florida he is overwhelmed, not with anxiety, but with glee! Which is surprising. The year is presumably 1992 (the year of the films release) and New York City is not gripped with crime, but the crime rates have not yet plummeted. Unemployment was at 11.2 percent in New York City and as far as what I could find on a cursory glance there were over 2300 murders, over 5000 rapes, and over 108,000 robberies. To put that in perspective the murder rate in New York City has not been over 1000 since 1998. Aggressive anti-crime initiatives enacted by Rudy Giuliani would not occur until his mayoral election and entering office in 1994. Things like CompStat, aggressive beat patrols, and a crackdown on petty offenses had not yet occurred. I'm not saying Kevin should be terrified, but if he knew the stats, 9/10 year old kid walking around with his dads credit card, cash, and a hot toy (The Talk Boy) shouldn't be giddy either. The least of his worries should be a old woman central park drifter who seems to have an affinity for birds.

He does some of the typical sight seeing all evidently in a days time. Presuming they left the airport from Chicago and flew directly in to New York he packs in a lot in a single day. Oddly he's shown taking the Brooklyn Bridge in to Manhattan and yet it is likely judging by the brief shot I pulled off youtube he has likely landed in LaGuardia. He's probably taking the subway but in a small montage he is seen both at Radio City Music Hall and then on the top of the World Trade Center. Right. So he checks in to the 'Plaza Hotel' in a baller suite. I'd have to guess the rate for his room on the low end would still have to start at something like 900 dollars a night. And as far as I can tell he only spends one night in the hotel by himself. The 23rd. The showdown in Central Park with the wet bandits occurs the 24th and that same night he meets his mom and reunites with his family. The entire family is now in New York and now in a newer bigger suite. Did they get comped? Who is to say. Perhaps because of the fuck up by the hotel they want to just comp them since they did let some little kid sweet talk his way through using his fathers credit card and what not.

Regardless, allow me to get to my main point of this entire post. The film ends with Kevin's father yelling from the hotel to the city at large angrily declaring that Kevin has spent 967 dollars in room service. That in it of itself is shocking given the fact that Kevin effectively had one and a half days to rack up that bill and even at the insane rates that a nice hotel would charge for room service, I do feel some incredulous. None the less, he should be more concerned with how he is going to pay for the room. And if not the room, the the fact that this entire family is likely flying on his bill. 967 dollars in the big picture is very little given that the house they live in has (IN REAL LIFE) recently hit the market for a tune of 2.4 million or something like that in Chicago. I'd have to assume they're doing well. Who knows. I have too many questions.

In Conclusion, Kevin should have been murdered in New York.