IMDb plot summary: Gang of bumbling crooks kidnap a bratty little kid, find out they got more than they bargained for.
Directed by Gary Nelson. Starring Gary Coleman, Paul Le Mat, Ruth Gordon, and Dee Wallace.
This movie is pretty goofy. It's clearly aiming toward a young audience and is filled with silly slapstick gags and cheap one-liners that frequently don't work -- but not always. There are enough jokes in here that even if only a quarter of them land that's enough to make you feel like you're having an okay time. That's what happened with me, anyway. It was hard to get irritated by any of the cringier jokes because they were over pretty quickly. Additionally, I haven't really seen Gary Coleman in anything before this, but his matter-of-fact delivery of some of these lines made them work better than if it had been someone more visibly winking at the camera with their character. I genuinely enjoyed his performance, and it helped to ground the more outlandish acting around him. Not a great movie but any means but I didn't hate it, and if I'd watched this as a kid I'd probably have loved it.
How it entered my Flickchart:
Jimmy the Kid < Seasons of the Heart
Jimmy the Kid > Double, Double, Toil and Trouble
Jimmy the Kid > Ghostbusters II
Jimmy the Kid > Don Jon
Jimmy the Kid < Trainwreck
Jimmy the Kid > Cape Fear (1991)
Jimmy the Kid < Forbidden Planet
Jimmy the Kid < The Kids Are All Right
Jimmy the Kid < The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
Jimmy the Kid > Easy Virtue
Jimmy the Kid > Mystic River
Jimmy the Kid < Heat
Final spot: #1828 out of 3354, or 45%.