Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3172 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-06-28
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 97 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Ray Peterson (Tom Hanks) would like nothing better than to spend a quiet week's vacation in his suburban home, drinking beer and watching TV. But, spurred on by his two friends' spinning of boyish paranoid fantasies about their reclusive neighbours, the Klopeks, the usually down-to-earth Ray begins to suspect his idyllic neighbourhood has been invaded by an evil force, to the point where he and his friends become psychotically nosey. You see where this is going, and you see it from a mile off. Only the general surface-thin plot is somewhat offset by director Joe Dante's fine sense of the absurd, and a host of engagingly played neighbor-types, namely Rick Ducommun as Ray's best friend who's always proposing bad ideas, and Bruce Dern as a sometimes wild-eyed ex-vet who'd love some action. Dante and crew seem to have a knack for keeping these broad characterisations light enough that you don't mind their superficiality. But the best jokes in this unprepossessing film come from composer Jerry Goldsmith's score; Bruce Dern's presence, for instance, is announced by the theme from Patton, and the boys' first approach to the Klopeks' for a meet-and-greet is buttressed by classic strains from Sergio Leone spaghetti Westerns. Kudos to the Klopeks, for their evil ways are ably embodied by Henry Gibson, Courtney Gains, and Brother Theodore. In particular, any suburb that finds it's inhabited by the likes of Brother Theodore is in dire need of new zoning laws. But Carrie Fisher's role as Ray's amiably long-suffering wife is thankless, and she deserves better. --Jim Gay

Synopsis
Set in an average neighbourhood that is anything but average, Tom Hanks portrays suburbanite Ray Peterson, who finally takes a much-needed week of vacation. However, Ray doesn't use the time to jet off to some exotic locale, there are no frolicsome adventures in his plans, all he wants is a week of mindless relaxation in his own comfortable suburban home. His wife Carol (Carrie Fisher) warns him that he's liable to go crazy from the boredom, but he refuses to listen. The nothingness finally does get to him, however, and he creates a little excitement for himself by spying on his neighbours - the Klopeks, a mysterious, oddball family that just moved in to a dilapidated home down the street. When the neighbourhood grouch mysteriously disappears, Ray and a motley crew of other local crackpots begin to concoct wild theories about the strange, and perhaps murderous, goings on in the Klopek's creepy, old house. For one brief, shining moment their lives seem to have some meaning and purpose as Ray and his friends become consumed with the secrets of the bizarre family. Tom Hanks is hysterical as Ray, bringing his own brand of boyish charm and zany slapstick comedy to the screen.

Customer Reviews

One of the Huns came out of the cave!
My sister and I are reviewing this film as it is definetley one of our favourites.First is that anyone I know who has seen this film cannot help quoting from it comments such as "this is walter" and "what is that Slavic?".

What makes this film remarkable is that Tom Hanks leads the film and it is just not a Tom Hanks film. There is no message of hope no triumph of decent Americans.on the contrary this is a film that celebrates fear of strangers/foreigners and extols the virtue of snooping. What I find slightly annoying is that Rick Duccomon (Art aka Tuna-Neck) has been in so little since (I think he was in the lamentable California Man and Gremlins 2 but that is it). This is a tragedy as Rick's performance is a revelation especially his ability to eat in every single scene.

It also has excellent support from the always interesting Feldman and the barking mad Dern. One review (halliwells)described the Burbs as the most unusual American major studio film of the 80s It is certainly one of them. Make sure you buy the dvd because it is on tv a lot but always annoyingly cut.

Political allegory - perhaps
The 'burbs: one of those rare occasion where political allegory slipped virtually unnoticed into a mainstream Hollywood product (another perhaps being the anti-isolationist strictures of Open Water (2003)), the prescience of which seems more relevant today than it ever was. In a street of mutually complacent, smugly democratic neighbours comes a rogue family of unknowns, whose differing life style, secretive manner and foreign manner invites suspicion. Feeling their overtures are rebuffed, 'our' side concoct increasingly bizarre suspicions and allegations against the new arrivals, driving them into isolation until damage and conflict inevitably occurs after increasing ostracisation... Alert viewers may notice an amusing similarity of names: Art Weingarter - Caspar Weinberger (Reagan's hawkish Secretary of State), or see in Bruce Dern's Vietnam-eccentric a broader caricature of the military complex which frequently inform American national debate, in which foreign policy is often shrill, polarized between support of those we know and deep suspicion of those we don't. Others have expressed disappointment in the ending which, although neat enough, is conventional and a little false, primarily due to it running against the previous scheme of things. I felt the same disappointment incidentally at the end of Lehmann's Heathers (1989) of the same year, when I really wanted that whole rotten school demolished by explosives, corrupt institutions and all. The reason why the end of The 'burbs feels odd is that it leaves the implicit allegory considerably compromised by a last minute reassurance that yes, We were right all along - while Ricky's final "I love this street" is enough to urge viewers that, with all faults, America is still the best place to be. But, especially in this modern world of increasing intolerance towards other cultures (by both sides), and some mistaken assumptions as to the intentions of 'rogue states', on to well known, controversial adventuring abroad, it's worth seeing this brave film again with open eyes.

Nightcrawlers?!
I LOVE this film, it is my fave of all time, watch it at least once a year. Its a right 'cosy' film if you know what I mean. Classic 80s.