Getting Even with Dad (1994)

Timmy's Not Getting Mad, He's Getting Even with Dad.

Before I begin, I would like to suck my own dick for a second and brag about my recent editorial which was published in the September issue of The Drunken Canal. Big thanks to Gutes and Claire for seeing the vision and publishing my piece, as I will now be able to exhaustingly tell anyone who will listen that I am officially a published author. So, if you find yourself in Dimes Square, grab a copy of this month’s issue of The Drunken Canal if there are any left. If you like my piece, tell me how great I did because positive reinforcement never hurts. Okay, enough about me! More about movies.

When you think of iconic movie hairstyles, who comes to mind? Cruella De Vil? Morticia Addams? Foxy Cleopatra? James Dalton? Well, you’d be correct. Those are all extremely cool iconic movie hairstyles. But what about iconic movie hairstyle pairs? Like, a dynamic duo of great hairstyles on the two leads? Who comes to mind? Jules Winnfield and Vincent Vega? Honestly, that’s probably the best answer. Sam Jackson with the wig is one of the best things about that movie. But all of this is neither here nor there. We are here today to discuss MY favorite movie hairstyle duo of all time. There is a pair of hairstyles that I dream about, that I could start a thousand mood boards just to post photos of. How fortunate are we that they happened to make a movie around these two hairstyles? What the hell am I talking about? Why, none other than the 1994 masterpiece Getting Even with Dad.

Getting Even with Dad is one of those movies that I used to think about all the time, almost as if it were some 90’s fever dream I had and it wasn’t real, but boy howdy is it real. I saw this as a kid and didn’t rewatch it until about two years ago, and I was so excited to finally do so, mostly for the hair. This classic movie was directed by Howard Deutch and is currently sitting pretty at a whopping 3% on Rotten Tomatoes. It stars Ted Danson’s glorious mullet/ponytail combo and Macauley Culkin’s kinda-long-in-the-back/swoop-front combover. Macauley and his hair play Timmy Gleason, a preteen whose mother died when he was young and who has been living with his aunt and new uncle and gets dropped off at his estranged father’s apartment so his aunt can go on her honeymoon which is where our adventure begins. His father Ray, played by Danson and his locks, is a cake decorator at a renowned bakery with dreams to buy the bakery and make it his own, and is also an ex-con who learned his trade in prison and plans to use an upcoming coin heist to foot the bill for the bakery.

Ray is annoyed and not too happy about Timmy being there because Timmy is dropped in his father’s life at possibly the most inconvenient time; he arrives right as Ray and his flunkies Bobby (the always dazzling Saul Rubinek) and Carl (Gailard Sartain) are planning the heist of some rare uncirculated coins that the government seized from a widow’s estate (I think?) and are sitting at a value of $1.5 million on the black market. Ray even has a corrupt appraiser and buyer set up! This guy thinks of everything. Honestly, it’s a great plan, and the fact that Ray just wants one last big score before he turns himself legit is admirable, even though that often leads to the downfall of so many heist leaders and thieves of movies past. But Ray and the boys have more to worry about than being cliché with their criminal intent.

While they successfully steal the coins from the guards transferring them (using a scheme that would eventually be stolen by the Craigslist Brinks robber Anthony Curcio and would make Michael Mann proud), their victory is short lived when Timmy reveals that he knows all about their heist. He also reveals that he has videotaped evidence of what they did that he sent to a friend in a town over, and he has also hidden the coins. Timmy is a nosy little shit. You could tell this earlier when his uncle wanted to leave him on the side of the road, but it is cemented here. Like, that’s your dad, dude, just let him pull off a gigantic heist! What’s it to you, you nosy little shit?

In exchange for not turning them over to the authorities, he wants Ray to…be a dad. That’s it. He wants to go to a San Francisco Giants game. He wants to go to the amusement park. He wants to go to the aquarium. Ray kinda owes him, since he has never been around for Timmy nor provided much for him, but Timmy still must force his father’s hand in going along with his plan.

Before we get into the wacky hijinks, I have to take a moment to praise Ted Danson’s shirts. Going back to playing Sam Malone on Cheers, Danson has always been outfitted in some excellent tops. By the time this movie hit theaters, Cheers was over. It was so nice to see the tradition of Great Shirts on Danson continuing in this film, especially because he has that excellent mullet going, and even more so because I’m like 99% sure the shirts he’s wearing in this film are by Nat Nast, which if you know me you will know is one of my absolute all-time favorite shirting companies. I’ll stop now because I can talk Nat Nast all damn day and if that’s actually what you want, shoot me an email and let me know and I’ll start a second newsletter called like Nastyboyz or something. We’ll figure it out.

Anyway, Ray and Timmy and their hairstyles are off to all the sights and events. Bobby has pretty cool hair, too, but his cut was well out of fashion by 1994 as it’s the same one my dad had in high school in the 60’s. Also, if I may say, Saul Rubinek is so good at playing sleazy characters. His role in True Romance was the practice he needed to be able to play Bobby so well; its easy to play the wealthy sleazeball but he can also pull off the low-rent criminal sleazeball just as well. Timmy asks Bobby and Carl if they are ex-cons like his dad is upon meeting them, and it’s pretty obvious to the viewers as well. Bobby does not like Timmy and is not happy with Ray for going along with all of this. Their argument is overheard by a wino who reports it to the police but they can’t do much without more evidence than the word of a wino, so they send detective Theresa Walsh (Glenne Headly) to spy on them, and since she’s a pretty lady and Ray’s a single dad, I think you can all see where this will end up from a mile away.

During a hoops session where Ray instructs Timmy with life lessons on how to pick up women, Timmy’s ball rolls into the street and Theresa, who had been watching from the a newsstand, finally has to reveal herself as she yells for Timmy to watch out and not get hit by a car. This leads to Timmy inviting Theresa out with him and Ray using his recently-acquired ladykilling skills. There is obvious chemistry between Ray and Theresa, and while they are on their date with Timmy buying his dead mother’s preferred perfume for Theresa (Jesus that’s creepy), Bobby and Carl are off on a wacky caper to try and locate the bag of coins without Ray’s or Tim’s knowledge, which culminates in them going inside dumpsters and fucking up a church (including extinguishing a cigarette in holy water), because it was the early 90’s and I think this is a kids’ movie. Bobby and Carl are absolutely miserable at any task they take on. How do they expect to get the coins and make the flip without Ray? C’mon guys, you suck!

While those two idiots end up arrested, Ray, Theresa and Timmy are out on a third wheel dinner date where Ray gets Timmy a cake for all the birthdays he missed out on. Honestly, this is pretty sweet. I know it’s taken some bonding time and forced hand-holding to get Ray to this point, but I mean I don’t wanna be a dad so I kinda get where he’s coming from. Between this and him declaring that the government just wanted to sell those coins to buy more limos for fat cats, he may be more redeemable than we are initially led to believe. Eventually Ray lets on to Timmy that Ray was instructed by Timmy’s mother not to be in his life and that’s the main reason he hasn’t been around, well that and prison.

The flunkies are arrested with a treasure map Timmy made to locate the coins and the detectives attempt to decipher it. Theresa believes Timmy to be an accessory to the crime and the other detectives think Theresa is in over her head by getting romantic with Ray, because it wouldn’t be the early 90’s without some dudes telling a woman she’s weaker than them even though she pretty much has all this shit figured out while the guys are essentially clueless and useless.

The same cop from Home Alone 2 who gave Kevin’s mom a ride to Rockefeller Center to find Kevin under the Christmas tree is now working for a different bureau here in San Francisco and attempts to chase Timmy on the subway. But since Timmy is played by Macauley, antics ensue, and Timmy gets the better of the cop and sends him off in the wrong direction.

Ray finally confronts Timmy about giving up the locations of the coins, as Ray followed all of Timmy’s requests. Timmy says that he doesn’t want Ray to be a criminal anymore and that whoever takes that loot will get caught and arrested and go to prison, and Timmy doesn’t want that to be Ray. Fair. So, he makes Ray choose between Timmy staying and they turn in the coins, or Ray can keep the coins and make his deal, but he loses his son. Ray tries to argue that after this deal, he won’t be a criminal anymore and will turn over to legit work as a baker, but that doesn’t work for Timmy as he’s always going to know where the money for the bakery came from: crime. After much deliberation, Ray chooses the coins. Smart. The coins aren’t nosy little shits like Timmy.

Since this IS a movie after all, Ray has a change of heart and goes to stop Timmy’s bus, not knowing Theresa and the other detectives are waiting for him to go for the locker at the bus terminal containing the coins. Bobby then shows up, sick of all this nonsense, and sticks a gun at Ray telling him to give up the coins. When the locker is open, the pair of them are arrested and Ray is disgusted to find out Theresa was double-crossing him more than Bobby was. When the detectives go to empty the bag, it’s full of coins, all right, but not rare ones! A whole table full of pennies falls from the bag. Hope everyone brought their loafers because there’s enough to go around!

Charges are dropped and Ray is let go. Timmy clues Theresa in on where the coins actually are and they are recovered. Theresa and Ray make amends, but Ray tells Timmy they can’t be together yet, as there is a cooldown period after a cop arrests a criminal where they need to wait before dating, which must be San Francisco law because I’ve never heard that. Oh well, I’m not fact checking here, I’m just here to be a nosy little shit and pick the film apart. It ends with Ray deciding to go legit and adopt Timmy. Not sure if it’s legal to have all that great hair contained in one apartment, but Ray appears to be the law expert, so he’d know. And that’s our movie.

So we have two great heads of hair that eventually COMB THROUGH the tensions and FLATTEN OUT their problems where everything is STRAIGHTENED out in the end. OTHER HAIR PUNS. Sorry, I ran out. Regardless, this classic film didn’t do too well at the box office. A $5 million profit on a movie starring Mac at the height of his fame and Danson right after Cheers ended is absolutely not what the studios had in mind, I’m sure. They had bankable names. They also had this movie to deal with. I couldn’t remember anything about this one aside from the montage of antics set to “Do You Love Me?” by The Contours until I rewatched it about two years ago. Now, knowing what this movie has in store, I’ll gladly rewatch it any time. It definitely deserves, like, a 64% on Rotten Tomatoes for the hairstyling alone, but sadly most critics don’t rate films for hairstyles alone. This shit is comfort food to me. Mac, Ted, amazing 90’s hair, a terrible plot, squid facts, this movie has it all.

You’re not going to outdo that hair so you might as well not even try. But if you have a weakness for the stylings I described to you, as well as 100+ minutes of runtime that could have been wrapped up just fine in under 15, then hop onto the HBO Max app and hit play on Getting Even with Dad. Even if you don’t enjoy the movie, I think we can all appreciate that moment where Ray releases the ponytail and shows us a mullet that would make Swayze cry (RIP Big Sway). Like, these photos don’t even do the hair justice, you really need to see it in action. So go watch it. All of it. It’s…definitely a movie. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya.