Unaccompanied Minors (2006)

A group of unaccompanied minors bond while snowed in at the midwestern Hoover International Airport during the holiday season and ultimately create a makeshift holiday themselves.

Director:

Paul Feig

Writers:

Jacob Meszaros, Mya Stark

Stars:

Tyler James Williams, Dyllan Christopher, Gia Mantegna

2 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Lewis Black	...	Oliver Porter
Wilmer Valderrama	...	Zach Van Bourke
Tyler James Williams	...	Charlie Goldfinch
Dyllan Christopher	...	Spencer Davenport
Brett Kelly	...	Timothy 'Beef' Wellington
Gia Mantegna	...	Grace Conrad (as Gina Mantegna)
Quinn Shephard	...	Donna Malone
Paget Brewster	...	Valerie Davenport
Rob Corddry	...	Sam Davenport
Dominique Saldaña	...	Katherine Davenport
Jessica Walter	...	Cindi
Rob Riggle	...	Head Guard Hoffman
Michelle Sandler	...	Mary Lynn
David Koechner	...	Ernie
B.J. Novak	...	Desk Attendant

Storyline

Spencer and his little sister, Katherine, are flying to Pennsylvania for Christmas with their dad. While changing planes, a blizzard moves in and cancels all flights out of Hoover Airport: they must stay in a basement room with the other unaccompanied minors. Spencer and four others - a chubby boy, a non-stop-talker, a surly girl, and a rich kid - go AWOL and get in trouble with Mr. Porter, the Christmas-hating airport supervisor. The five misfits spend the night evading and enduring Porter's punishments, discovering all sorts of things in back rooms, making sure Katherine gets her visit from Santa, and finding among themselves a new kind of family.

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Plot Keywords:

airport | christmas | blizzard | pennsylvania | walkie talkie | 

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Taglines:

Break Out December 8

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Genres:

Adventure | Comedy | Family

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG for mild rude humor and language

Details

Official Sites:

warnerbros

Country:

USA

Language:

English Spanish

Release Date:

8 December 2006 (USA)

Also Known As:

Menores sin control

Filming Locations:

Echo, Utah, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$26,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

£240,378 (UK) (15 December 2006)

Gross:

$16,647,384 (USA) (2 March 2007)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Warner Bros. Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures, Donners' Company

Technical Specs

Runtime:

90 min

Sound Mix:

DTS SDDS Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The Guards in the hall: Kevin McDonald, Bruce McCulloch, and Mark McKinney all used to be on the Canadian sketch comedy show The Kids in the Hall .

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Goofs

Charlie zips himself up in the red suitcase without putting his hand outside of it. This is impossible since there is no suitcase built to zip up from the inside.

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Quotes

Spencer Davenport: Nachos. Oh, my mom never lets me eat those, you know? So, an order of those. She's banned all sodas from the house, so extra, extra, extra-large root beer.
Restaurant Hostess: My mom never let me eat mozzarella sticks.
Spencer Davenport: Mine either. Two orders. On to dessert, huh?
Restaurant Hostess: You don't have a tapeworm, do you?

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Connections

References Today (1952)

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Soundtracks

"Everything's Gonna Be Cool This Christmas (Acoustic Version)"
Written by Mark Everett
Performed by Mark Everett' (as E)
Courtesy of Universal Records
Under license from Universal Music Enterprises

User Reviews

The island of misfit minors

Unaccompanied Minors blows such a grand opportunity for a kids film, so much so that sticking around to the end is a chore because you see so many ways the film could've subverted its dead end cliché material and watching it stay gridlocked to cheap, disposable schlock of the least common denominator is painful to say the least. With the wealth of talent and directorial experience on recognizably professional TV shows, I would've expected director Paul Feig to give this film proper guidance into sustainable entertainment and not that of a facile nature.

The film stars a wealth of talented youngsters that you hunger to see in better material. They are all "unaccompanied minors," planing to fly alone to travel to one place or another for Christmas, when all the flights at the airport are unexpectedly grounded because of an enormous blizzard that has consumed the entire town. We first meet Spencer and Katherine Davenport (Dyllan Christopher and Dominique Saldaña), who are scheduled to fly to Pennsylvania to spend Christmas with their father, but are instead, transferred to the ominous U.M. room when their flight is cancelled.

And what a room this "U.M. room" is. It's the most archaic sight in a kids' movie since watching Eddie Murphy, Jeff Garlin, and Steve Zahn get man-handled by a bunch of rugrats in Daddy Day Care. The room is crawling with about fifty or sixty ankle-biters, running lawlessly throughout the large, mundane room. The dopey but somewhat likable Zach Van Bourke (Wilmer Valderrama) is conned into watching the kids, but after he is tackled, several kids manage to escape and run wild in the airport. They are prettygirl Grace (Gina Mantegna), smart but overly-goofy Charlie (Tyler James Williams), sensitive Donna (Quinn Shephard), and the quiet Beef (Brett Kelly). They are captured by the head of passenger relations Oliver Porter (Lewis Black), and sent back to the ominous room, where the activity has died down since the remaining unaccompanied minors were taken to a quiet lodge for the night, but the six kids manage to sneak out once more, with Spencer desperately trying to get a doll delivered to his sister, who is now at the lodge.

All the kids here are great and can be very effective in better material. We already know the capabilities of Brett Kelly, who was perfectly cast in Bad Santa, but here, he is made into the bumbling, mysterious fat kid, who we know even less about at the end of the film than at the beginning. Tyler James Williams of Everybody Hates Chris fame works well in his little role, but after a while, his character, much like he would in real life, becomes a pain to deal with. An nerdy, confused, quirky little albatross.

We could think of these five kids as misfits and the airport as their island. This already poses an interesting setup. But, unfortunately, writers Jacob Meszaros and Mya Stark make the film nothing more than a collection of slapstick gags, and only incorporating the ideas of divorce, loneliness, and being an outcast as little minor character backstories the film chooses to do noting with. I believe that many, many kids would be more interested in watching kids go through and handle the same problems they possibly are going through rather than lumber around setups concocted from a fourth graders daydream.

Starring: Dyllan Christopher, Dominique Saldaña, Tyler James Williams, Brett Kelly, Gina Mantegna, Quinn Shephard, Lewis Black, Wilmer Valderrama. Directed by: Paul Feig.