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List Price: $14.98 | | Label: Warner Home Video
Salesrank: 31976
Released: February 10, 2004 |
| Our Price: $14.93 |
| Used Price: $6.96 |
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MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
When a harried businessman and a hapless crook collide on the biggest day of both their careers, the only road seems to lead straight to comic disaster. A workaholic advertising executive (David Paymer) is stuck driving the neighborhood carpool on the day of a make-or-break presentation. A down-on-his luck carnival owner (Tom Arnold), fleeing a bungled robbery, takes the exec and his vanful of kids hostage and begins a comic day-long chase through the city streets where the two men learn some unexpected lessons and forge an unlikely friendship.
Carpool Reviews:
Morally problematic 
2008-09-25 - I thought the movie was funny, enjoyable & well-made. The performances were good especially Tom Arnold & Rhea Pearlman. The problem I had was with the moral problems of the script. Especially the point in the mall, here the father & children are free from being hostages (albeit from a harmless Arnold). At that point, they actually help in the escape of Arnold who, however sympathetic, has comitted a criminal act. So they are then guilty of aiding & abetting a criminal. I know that this didn't bother anyone else reviewing this, nor am I a moralist. But it seemed quite wrong, especially in a family film. The ending somewhat abets this by having Arnold give back the money & perform community service. But I don't see how in a film you can encourage aiding & abetting a criminal. Liking him, being sympathetic & compassionate to him, forgiving him, yes. Helping him crossed a line that shouldn't have been crossed.
Carpool Review 
2008-08-20 - It's a fun movie . . . pretty slap stick, but I just wanted it for the grandkids and to watch once a year.
Carpool Is A Decent Entertainer
2006-07-02 - ON THE WHOLE CARPOOL IS A DECENT ENTERTAINER. THE FILM ISN'T HALIROUS BUT IT IS FUNNY. THE FILM ISN'T BORING AT ALL. A ONE TIME WATCHER.
TOM ARONLOD IS GOOD,YET AGAIN.
DAVID PAYMER IS EXCELENT. HE STEALS THE SHOW.
A dandy movie it was 
2006-03-09 - This was an exiting movie and made my emotions go crazy! It was funny,it was sad, and it was all around interesting to see what was going to happen next! I enjoyed this movie very much :) Rena Bissett
Fairly Good Comedy
2003-08-31 - 8/31/03 The video was a "better than average" video with many action scenes of "police car chase" due to a robbery interceded by Tom Arnold who was just looking for a "donut" and ended with the money instead of the real robbers..Arnold's character also ends up with a hostage (who was carpooling and had come into the store just to get bread and roll and Danish buns)with no casualty,just more demolition work for the mechanics..Emphasis was on "small town" which had a Mall,a Sizzler,(mention of a Denny,a Gourmet Food Market,a Carnival(belonging to Arnold which had closed),a very active Barber Shop-Beauty Salon(where the hostage(a middle management executive),the kids he's car-pooling:(5): adolescent to teen) and of course the man with the gun "Arnold" purchased hair dye in aerosol cans to spray the "Van" purple vs its recently commercial paint job of green) and almost as many employees who are "policemen" as were those who would need "one'.Even the meter maid had a "state of the arts vehicle" : both her vehicle and the vehicle being pursued cars maneuvered right up the steps inside the Mall..It ends with a teen reminding the "Mogul" that the adult population in the "small town"is getting old & "moving to Florida" or "permanently exiting to Forest Lawn Cemetary" [exception being those toteing their own gun like one of the very gutzy little "Arsenic and Old Lace" ladies in the Gourmet Shop /or like Arnold's mother whom he talked to on the Beauty Salon phone and warned her not to go to the Sizzler's.She is 'solo' in the last scene in the movie with background music of the "rock song" "Tell Mama What You Need" single handedly demolishing a Sizzler ripping out its furnishings and throwing them through its window ....she hadn't been pleased with the service]and that the stores should focus on the adolescent,puberty and teen groups as the consumer to please(the business meeting at a Hammermans Gourmet Shop corporate quarters dismissed the idea of their being enough population in the the adult age gap from 30 Something -to- "the Aged" to need focus on them as consumers).The other plots are routine to most family movies:(dad puts "job/career" second to getting home early for supper when he reqalizes the kids like the man whose taken him hostage betten than himself,truly bad guys get caught,estranged people meeting again due to fate(the meter maid and the top police officer), a stong woman(Arnold's mother can beat a fleet of police officer via biteing and punching,middle management gets a chance to befavored in place of upper management) .There is novelty in the "car chase scenes" and "background music".So many issues to make you say "hmmmmm" in a movie that gets you to also say "this is unbelieveable".
