Dennis the Menace

Dennis Mitchell (Mason Gamble) is a five-year-old boy who lives with his parents Henry (Robert Stanton) and Alice (Lea Thompson) and is the bane of next door neighbor George Wilson's (Walter Matthau) existence. One day, George pretends to be asleep to avoid Dennis, who mistakes this for illness and shoots an aspirin into his mouth with a slingshot. Dennis's parents Henry and Alice learn of the incident, and are both dismayed about it, but they can't immediately deal with it, as they both have to work, so they leave Dennis with his best friend Joey McDonald at the home of their impetuous classmate Margaret Wade, much to Dennis's dismay. Despite Dennis and Joey's dislike of Margaret, the three work together to fix up an abandoned tree-house in the woods. Because of his trouble-making but unintentional behavior, his parents often struggle to find suitable babysitters to deal with him. While vacuuming spilled paint in the garage, Dennis inadvertently shoots a glob of it onto George's barbecue grill. Tasting the paint, George suspects Dennis for the mischief. On one night, they manage to get one named Polly (Natasha Lyonne) and her boyfriend Mickey (Devin Ratray) to babysit him, but repeated doorbell pranks from Dennis push the two too far (not knowing he is behind this). Mickey tapes a thumbtack to the doorbell. George investigates the vacuum in the Mitchells' garage and accidentally shoots himself in the buttocks with a golf ball. Hoping to confront the Mitchells, George rings the doorbell, but pricks his thumb on the tack, and Polly and Mickey, mistaking him for the prankster, douse George with water and flour, much to the amusement of George's wife, Martha. While all of this and the rest of the events in town go on, a burglar named Switchblade Sam (Christopher Lloyd) arrives in town and begins robbing houses, as well as striking fear into the children that he meets. Dennis plays with George's dentures, loses the two front incisors, and replaces them with Chiclets before George has his picture taken for the local newspaper. Dennis' parents are both called away on business trips at the same time, and when everyone they know refuses to look after him, they turn to George and his wife Martha (Joan Plowright) to look after him. Martha loves Dennis and sees him as a surrogate grandson. George is further irritated by him spilling bath water on the bathroom floor, swapping chemicals, and bringing his pet dog, Ruff, into the house for a while. George, however, is infuriated that Dennis has replaced his nasal spray with mouthwash and the latter with toilet cleaner. In the attic, Dennis's carelessness causes George to slip on mothballs. All of this is happening around the time the Summer Floraganza, a long-awaited event, is scheduled to happen. As a longtime member of the local garden club, George is chosen to host it. He is excited to have this honor, as he has been growing and nurturing a rare plant for forty years. After growing for the said length of time, its flower finally blooms, only to die several seconds later. Alice gets stuck at the airport due to a storm, thus forcing Dennis to stay with the Wilsons for an extra night, which coincides with the unveiling of the plant and its blooming to the members of the garden club. While that is happening, he is sent away for causing trouble, namely overturning the dessert table when he pushed a black button, which he found out opened the garage door. When he hears Switchblade Sam robbing the house. He goes downstairs and finds George's gold coins missing. He runs outside to tell him just as the flower is beginning to bloom, which causes him and all the guests to miss its entire lifespan of the blooming flower. Not knowing about the robbery, George severely scolds Dennis, tells him that he has no use for him, and that he doesn't want to know or see him anymore. Shortly thereafter, Dennis gets on his bicycle (with a wagon attached) and rides off into the night, eventually bumping into Switchblade Sam in the woods. Sam then abducts him, intending to use the child as a hostage. Dennis' parents return home and learn of his departure, and they, the authorities, his friends Joey (Kellen Hathaway), Margaret (Amy Sakasitz) and all the neighborhood kids, and George search all night for him. George feels intense guilt and remorse after remembering all the things he said to him and having now discovered his house was burglarized and that Dennis actually had good intentions when he tried to tell him. Switchblade Sam prepares to leave town with Dennis as an unsuspecting hostage but grows annoyed with Dennis's constant talking. Showing Sam the proper way to tie him up, Dennis handcuffs Sam, loses the key, unintentionally bludgeons him multiple times, and sets him on fire. As Dennis discovers George's stolen coins and realizes that Switchblade Sam is a thief, Sam attempts to stab Dennis but is snared in a rope that is caught by a passing train and stabbed in the buttocks by his own knife, subduing him too much to do anything further. Dennis returns to George's house the next morning with Switchblade Sam in his wagon, having also recovered George's gold coins, and Sam is taken into police custody by a slightly amused sheriff Bennett (Paul Winfield) who had previously advised him to leave town. Switchblade Sam is arrested, and Dennis naively returns his knife. Sam attempts to stab Dennis again, but Chief Bennett accidentally closes the police car door on his hand, causing him to drop his knife into the storm drain and wince in pain before being driven away, with all the neighborhood children taunting him. Dennis and George make up, and the Mitchells and Wilsons become friends on better terms. Alice mentions that she will not be traveling for work anymore and can bring Dennis to work with her because her office now has a day-care center. That night, George explains that he's learned some things about kids: kids are kids, and that one has to play by their rules, roll with the punches, and expect the unexpected, in which afterward Dennis, trying to get a flame on a marshmallow to go out, then accidentally hits him in the forehead with it. The film's end credits are accompanied with Dennis inadvertently humiliating his mother's egotistical coworker, Andrea (Melinda Mullins), while she is using a photocopier. Dennis impishly whacks the "PRINT" button and runs away, with other workers looking on. Andrea loses her balance, and her head gets pinned face-down on the scanner-bed, and the machine relentlessly flashes its blinding light in her eyes as it repeatedly "takes her picture" and spews out page after page of black-and-white "photos" showing her various agonized facial expressions as she squirms about on the scanner bed.