The film perfectly captures the conflict between the stultifying requirement for conformity in suburban small town 1950s America, and the need for personal freedom and expression. The script writing is lean and spare, and in so being avoids patronising the viewer, and it allows the cast to masterfully convey things by leaving them unsaid. Mary Elizabeth Mastroantonio is breathtaking as the quietly seething diplomat of a widow, steering her life and family through the slings and arrows of outraged neighbours, who welcomes an injured drifter, Jack (Patrick Swayze) into her home. This is a combination of period piece, family drama, and mystical tale.

This is not a 'major league' movie, and I don't think it was intended to be. It is a very nice and watchable feel-good movie. Patrick Swayze is excellent in the role of Jack the drifter and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio is excellent in her role of a dedicated widowed mother of two. The movie is a flashback to a month in the life Tom, who is now a father of two with difficulties in his business. The flashback takes him back to year 1955, when he was about 14, and his mother took Jack the drifter into their home to heal from a leg injury she has caused. Jack develops a close relationship with Tom, but after his leg heals Jack leaves them and goes back to being a drifter. The reason for the close relationship is that Jack teaches Tom some baseball tricks, and brings Jack to coach the entire team. The coach believes that Jack is actually a Major League who left baseball after yr 1941. But this simple, unsophisticated movie has a number of Buddhist messages: 'Enjoy life's every moment and count your blessings. If you try too hard you will not succeed. Everything also contains its opposite. Believe in magic.' And the blend makes a nice all-family movie.

This movie was billed as "fun for the whole family" -- NOT. It was awful. The setup/beginning of the movie has a lot of great possibilities. But it just gets stranger and stranger as the time goes on.A "Family friendly" movie DOES NOT include sunbathing in the nude, implied relations between mom and a drifter, cancer/deadly disease for the little brother, flying around in the sky, and losing your business and home as an adult. Depressing and weird.My 6 and 8 year old may not have picked up on some of the innuendos but from age 72 to age 6 we all hated it.

I saw this for rent last summer in the video store, I used to own it when it was brand new, and I was excepting a really old-fashioned era movie. I asked my mom about it, she said it was such a very, very uplifting, great movie. I got a good idea, it could be a modern day twist on Aladdin, set in LA, and Mazzello could be an orphan, streetrat in the big city. Thought would so rock. Let's get to the movie, Jeanne Holman (Mastrantonio) is struggling to raise her two sons, Tom (Mazzello), about 11, and Gunny about 5. Gunny has cancer, and Tom sucks at baseball, and is looking for a father figure, since his father is presumed to of died in the Korean war, and Swayze's good as the vaggrant, who turns out to be a drifter, who accompanies a genie that's actually a dog, Tom's friends think he's scary and peculiar, but turns out to be kind, eccentric, and even tells stories, that tell us about his dreamy, fantasy life, I get frustrated when I can't play baseball, and lose my temper sort of easy, because I've tried for so long, and I can relate to this, it's helpful if you're struggling at something. Tom is NOT a normal kid in my opinion, despite what reviews said say he's sensitive, and serious and is an outcast looking for a family. Just like the Real Joe with emotional challenges.