Review of Dunston Checks In (1996) by Pur__0_0__ — 16 May 2021

Dunston Checks In is one of the films that we had the DVD of back when I was a kid. I'm not gonna lie, it's a guilty pleasure of mine to watch this silm in spite of all its flaws. And for me it doesn't even come under the "so bad it's good" category. It's a piece of the lore that defines my childhood. It was the first film that I watched in Hindi dub (it's called Ek Bandar Hotel Ke Andar in Hindi). And it was also the movie where I learnt that the film has Hindi dubbing and the characters are not actually speaking in Hindi.

I won't go into the story since I don't want to give any spoilers just in case you accidentally stumbled upon this page and are reading this review. So all I'd tell you is that this is about an orangutan who has been brought to a hotel in order to steal by a thief. There are two mischievous kids of whom the younger one is the protagonist (obviously). The kid manages to befriend the orangutan and then they help catch the thief to save the day. There are a lot of other things also going on and the characters always have a background story, but this was the basic premise of the story.

You know those silly children's films from the 90's that we all watched and had a good time laughing at? Baby's Day Out, Home Alone, Jingle All The Way - It comes under the same category: A mindless comedy not meant to be taken seriously. Though it does make me kinda sad to know people don't exactly like it. And I genuinely don't see a single reason why this film has such poor reviews. It's just like all those movies that we were used to seeing back then. It deserves probably a little more appreciation. Sure it's a bit mindless and a copy of something we have often watched, but still this is too low.