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Updated 8/24/99

When I originally saw Harry and the Hendersons, I was intending to sit down to a Dirty Harry Film Festival, but when Harry And The Hendersons came on the Movie Channel, I just couldn't resist trying out one of Amblin' Entertainment's greatest failures, although you could make a case for the star being the dirtiest Harry.

Harry And The Hendersons is a film about a family of rabid hunters gunning down rabbits in the woods one day, "It was him or me, sis.", when on the trip home they run over Bigfoot. Realizing their moral imperative is to take him home and sale him, they hoist him onto their car and go sailing off to home sweet home. On the way, Bigfoot dies several times,(OR DOES HE?!), but fortunately it just turns out that a state approximating death is the Bigfoot's normal reaction to falling down.

Once home, Bigfoot comes to life again and raids the Henderson's refrigerator. To add insult to injury, he eats the carnation of the daughter, thus justifying her eternal anger throughout the rest of the film. Note: this is one of the two scenes where Bigfoot actually looks somewhat frightening. The rest of the film he goes around doing E.T. eyes. This creature is the most gentle and kind looking monster since Annie.

The family of course adopts him and gives him the name Harry. However, they decide that it would really be wrong to keep him chained up in their rapidly crumbling house, but not before Harry escapes to do some sightseeing in Seattle.

Harry's tour of Seattle, though, does not go well. People keep seeing him and despite his desperate attempts to add lib "Harry go home" they keep describing him as a hairy Jaws. To make matters worse, the only enjoyable character in the film, Jacques "Where did he go? Oh where did he go?" Fort is after him. Jacques is the Dirty Harry aspect of the film. He's loaded to the teeth, and armed for Harry.

John Mitchel, the father of the family, isn't going to take this off camera. While out one night patrolling the city, he finds the police cordoning off an area to hunt for Harry. Our man Mitchel goes in, commandeers a garbage truck, and saves Harry from the police.

Jacques, who almost had Harry in a one on one encounter in the garbage truck, has a friend. The amiable old guy from Splash, young from his youth treatments and back from his trip with the aliens, is also a Bigfoot nut, but he's a pacifistic disallusioned (his words, not mine). Takes all kinds to make up the ranks of the nuts. He gets a hold of John and comes to dinner to meet Harry. There, they decide to get Harry out of Seattle and back into the wilderness.

Meanwhile Jacques is finally getting out of jail. Having intimidated the slime in his cell (they keep running out of his way as he paces), he finally gets a lawyer who is convinced of his innocence ("Geez, you're a nut") to get him out. Collecting his guns from the police, he arrives at the Henderson's home just in time to get his tires punctured, whereupon he steals their car and chases after them in the old guy's truck.

An exciting chase ensues, where we discover that Harry can hoot like a police siren. Remind me to buy a siren today, because despite the fact that there was just a red bus behind them, people swerved out of the way like mad, allowing Harry and company to escape.

But not for long! Jacques, ever resourceful, engineers a way to catch up with them off camera which is never mentioned, and catches up to them just as they're trying to lay false Bigfoot tracks.

Jacques finally gets his chance to peg Harry, but apparently forgot that despite the snow on the ground, they were in the Amazon jungle, because although he fires 9,000 rounds at Harry, this world famous hunter extraordinaire hits nothing but trees, BUT HE NEVER MISSES! If there hadn't been a tree branch where he'd been firing, he would've hit Harry 9,000 times.

Harry solves the situation by roughing up Jacques a little and then shaking hands. With no one else after him, he says goodbye to the Hendersons and walks off into the jungle. As he's walking, we find out that there are twelve million Bigfeet in the woods, since about thirty who just happened to be hanging around pop out to walk with Harry.