Why The Police's Actions In Home Alone Make No Sense
"Home Alone" is one of those movies that truly captures the essence of the early '90s. At its core, the movie represents a child's fantasy of what it would be like to have the entire house to yourself in both positive and negative ways. It's also a movie that works with the technology present in the 1990s that wouldn't feel the same in our modern era where smartphones and internet access permeate every aspect of our lives.
After all, things would be much more manageable if Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) had a smartphone handy that his mother could call to make sure he's okay or even contact a neighbor to check on him. Plus, with smartphones, everyone in the McCallister household would have the alarms set on their phones, so even if the power went out in the middle of the night, no one's alarm clocks would be affected. They'd wake up on time and wouldn't rush to the airport, leaving Kevin behind in the process.
There are always a few plot holes audiences can overlook, especially when a movie comes from another time. Still, that doesn't explain one of the most glaring inconsistencies in "Home Alone," which involves the utter incompetence of the local police.
Why would the cops leave after a few knocks?
To the credit of Kevin's parents, they contact the police as soon as they arrive in Paris, which results in a bureaucratic nightmare. Mrs. McCallister continually gets transferred with no one taking the idea of a child left home alone all that seriously. An officer does eventually make it out to the house, where he knocks a few times. Kevin hides under the bedsheets, not knowing who's at the door, and after a few minutes of no response, the officer merely leaves.
It's an odd decision because he has no idea what Kevin's really up to in that house. They don't know if he's injured or ingested poison, the latter of which is a question an officer asks Kevin's mom in the previous scene. Did the cops really believe Mrs. McCallister miscounted her kids and contacted the police as a joke?
Granted, the cops can't enter a house without a search warrant. If Kevin didn't answer, there might not have been much for him to do. However, at the bare minimum, he could've driven around the neighborhood to tell other households an unsupervised child is staying at a house across the street. At the very least, other people would know about the situation and could've helped Kevin on the several excursions he makes outside of his home. Hopefully, the "Home Alone" reboot coming to Disney+ addresses this glaring issue.