I distinctly recall sitting down to watch "Carpool" at home ten years ago and being appalled within the first ten minutes by the film's insulting intelligence level. It stars David Paymer as an average Joe who transports a bunch of whiny kids back and forth in a daily carpool. However, one morning he picks up a stranger - or, more specifically, a criminal (Tom Arnold) who may or may not actually be such a bad guy after all.

The movie is one of those incredibly lame "family movies" that is clearly designed for one target audience: infantile children who can't differentiate between quality and utter rubbish.

This is, sadly, part of the latter category. I don't "hate" Tom Arnold for no good reason like some people out there seem to, but I don't like him very much (he's only ever caught my interest in one movie before - "True Lies") and he's completely aggravating here in a role just about anyone else could have performed better (except, perhaps, for Pauly Shore).

Paymer is given the thankless role of a hapless, meek idiot who evidently attended too many Nice Guy Clichés 101 classes.

Overall, you won't be neglecting yourself anything particularly special if you decide to skip this unfortunate little disaster.