STEALING HOME. Directed and written by Steven Kampmann and Will Aldis; produced by Thom Mount and Hank Moonjean for Warner Bros. Starring Mark Harmon, Jody Foster, William McNamara and Jonathan Silverman. Rated PG-13.
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Don't let Stealing Home steal your time and money. It's a confused and confusing mishmash of a movie that tries to do too many things and ends up doing none of them well.
Several levels of flashbacks, a whole zoo of sub-plots, aborted attempts here and there at character development—it's just too much.
The title would indicate that the movie's about baseball. And it is, sort of, at least for a couple of scenes. There's also a comic—supposedly—sub-plot involving a wisecracking teenager obsessed with sex. (Sounds original, doesn't it?)
Then there's Billy, Harmon's character, who is approaching middle age in purposeless and joyless fashion. Stealing Home's plot is so predictable, in spite of its fragmentation, that we just know we'll witness his redemption before it's over.
Even a strong cast probably could not have saved Stealing Home. But we'll never know. Harmon is attractive, of course, but not a very convincing tragic hero. The same goes for McNamara, who plays the guy as a teenager.
Foster is more talented, but her character here is so flaky she's impossible to identify, or even sympathize, with. Silverman is funny for a while but his character is so one-dimensional he becomes annoying before too long. Ditto for Harold Ramis and his grown-up version.
Blair Brown gives the only really good performance as Billy's mother, but her role is much too brief to turn the tide.
If you want to see a baseball movie, catch Bull Durham again. If you want to cry over bathos at the seaside, rent Summer of '42. If you want to ogle Mark Harmon, you'd do better to wait until "St. Elsewhere" goes into syndication.
But don't, for any reason, see Stealing Home.
September 21, 1988