Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Steve Martin and John Candy lead John Hughes' freewheeling road-trip comedy. An uptight ad exec and a boisterous curtain-ring salesman struggle to make the trip from New York to Chicago. Disaster repeatedly intervenes

After the success of The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, John Hughes managed to catch two of America's best mainstream comics at the peak of their powers. The result is a fast-paced and fantastically energetic two-man show that ranks among the director's finest films.

Neal Page (Martin) is the cynical advertiser who first clashes with Del Griffith (Candy) over a cab in NYC, then finds himself stuck with the loudmouth lump for the next two thousand miles. Trains break down, cab-drivers are drunk, their bus is a draughty shag-wagon and their rented car melts.

The comic set-pieces are essentially variations on a theme (hapless thin man is thwarted by clumsy fat man - sound familiar?). But Hughes finds endless mileage in the conflict between Neal and Del and the whole thing's undercut by his clear affection for the characters. Martin and Candy's Laurel and Hardy riff is a treat to behold, and a poignant pointer to the great double-act they might have become.