Planes,Trains and Automobiles is a very funny film. The action begins in New York two days before Thanksgiving as Neal Page, a smart, snobbish and uptight marketing executive played by Steve Martin (perfectly cast), leaves his office to fly home to Chicago, where he’s due to spend the holiday weekend with his family. Shortly after he steps out on to Park Avenue, he bumps into Del (John Candy, amazing), a salesman specialising in shower-curtain rings, who nabs the taxi Neal believes was his.
It turns out that Del is heading west, too, and their paths cross repeatedly as all attempts to reach the Windy City are blown off course by bad weather, flight delays, a train breakdown and Neal’s expletive-laden meltdown at a car-rental counter. When he reluctantly joins forces with Del, their instant odd-couple relationship becomes a stew of social embarrassment and awkwardness.
Writer-director-producer John Hughes (who, like Candy, also died young, of a heart attack) had a string of hits in the 80s and 90s, with films such as Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink and Home Alone. With its deft blend of hilarity and humanity, Planes, Trains and Automobiles is his perhaps most satisfying work. - Daily Mail
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