Hiding Out

I'm wrapping up my look back at Jon Cryer with probably his best starring role, Hiding Out.

Cryer plays Andrew Morenski, a stock broker who is about to go to court for turning over states evidence against his firm. When two other brokers who also have to testify are murdered, along with the FBI agents assigned to Andrew, he decides to hide out as a high school student at his cousins school. Under the alias of Maxwell Houser, Andrew finds that high school is tougher the second time around. But he quickly turns it around and becomes one of the popular students and wins the attention of a female classmate, Annabeth Gish.

The premise is a bit far fetched. And the romance between Cryer and Gish could have gone icky, but director Bob Giraldi handles the proceedings in a sensitive and sweet way. Cryer does a better job when he is posing as a teenager than a stockbroker, mostly due to a distracting fake beard. He is backed by a strong, supporting cast. Keith Coogan is really good as Cryer's nerdy cousin. The scenes where Coogan is trying to help Cryer fit in, while Cryer helps Coogan to be more cool are pretty funny. And I have to say, this was the first movie I saw Annabeth Gish in, and I developed a little crush. The scenes with her and Cryer are sweet and remind me of the early days of dating in high school, sweet and clumsy. Of course sweet and clumsy was a dating method that followed me through life.

If you can suspend disbelief, Hiding Out is a great little movie that needs to be rediscovered.