I Bought Dutch on VHS for Thanksgiving — and Learned Why It’s Not Streaming

A Thanksgiving movie experiment that ended in disappointment — and a rewind button.

I waited forever to watch Dutch (1991), and I didn’t just randomly put it off. I was saving it.

Every year, once Thanksgiving week hits, I fall into the same ritual. It’s not a full-blown holiday-movie binge, and it’s definitely not Christmas creep. It’s a smaller, more specific tradition. A handful of movies that feel like late November. The days are shorter, the weather turns sour, travel stress starts to creep in, and everything feels just a little heavier than it did a month ago.

The rotation rarely changes. Pieces of April for the scrappy, imperfect family energy. Planes, Trains and Automobiles because it’s the gold standard and always will be. Scent of a Woman, which barely qualifies but somehow feels right every time. Hannah and Her Sisters, which isn’t really a Thanksgiving movie so much as a seasonal mood.

This year, I decided to finally watch Dutch.

It checked all the boxes. A Thanksgiving road trip comedy. John Hughes-adjacent. Ed O’Neill in a lead role. One of those movies people mention just often enough that it starts to feel like a blind spot you should correct. It seemed perfect for Thanksgiving week. Cozy. Slightly forgotten. The kind of thing that might quietly earn a permanent spot in the rotation.

Then I tried to find it.

No Netflix. No Prime. Not even Tubi! No random free-with-ads service swooping in to save the day. In 2025, that’s basically a warning sign. When a fairly mainstream early-’90s studio comedy isn’t streaming anywhere, it’s usually for a reason.

So I did what made the most sense to me: I bought the VHS.

There’s something oddly satisfying about that decision. Watching a half-forgotten holiday comedy the way it would’ve been watched back then, on tape, during the week it’s actually set. It felt like committing to the bit. Like maybe the format itself would add a little warmth. Sometimes VHS does that. It softens the edges. It lowers expectations in a way that helps.

I put it on during Thanksgiving week, exactly as planned.

And almost immediately, it became clear what Dutch really is: Planes, Trains and Automobiles again, just without the magic.

The setup is solid on paper. Ed O’Neill plays Dutch, a loud, blue-collar guy tasked with bringing his girlfriend’s wealthy, snobbish son home for Thanksgiving. Mismatched personalities. Road trip disasters. Forced bonding. You know the shape of the movie within minutes.

The problem is that the movie never really deepens that shape. Dutch stays abrasive. The kid stays irritating. They clash, something goes wrong, they clash again. Scene after scene feels like it’s hitting required road-comedy beats rather than building toward anything meaningful. You keep waiting for the moment where it clicks, where the characters reveal something underneath the noise.

That moment never really comes.

It’s not aggressively bad. It’s just flat. Predictable. The jokes mostly land with a shrug. The emotional turns feel obligatory rather than earned. Watching it, I kept thinking about how Planes, Trains manages to be genuinely funny while also quietly devastating. How its comedy has weight to it. Dutch mostly just fills time.

Even the VHS couldn’t save it.

If anything, watching it on tape made the experience feel more like an obligation. Like I was seeing something through because I’d already invested in it. When the movie wrapped up and hit its emotional conclusion, I wasn’t angry or offended. I was just underwhelmed. The kind of disappointment that confirms a suspicion you didn’t want to be right about.

By the end of Thanksgiving week, I slid the tape back into its sleeve and put it on the shelf. And then I did what I always do. I went back to the movies that have already earned their place. Those who understand how strange and emotionally charged this week can feel. The funny ones that hurt a little. The dramas that sneak up on you.

Dutch didn’t make the cut, but the VHS did, in its own way. It’s now part of the ritual, not as a classic, but as a reminder that half the appeal of these Thanksgiving watches is the anticipation. Saving something for the right moment. Sometimes that moment delivers. Sometimes it doesn’t.

Either way, the tradition keeps going. Next Thanksgiving, I hope to find a new title to add to the mix.