Review of Touch and Go

Michael Keaton, cast as Bobby "The Hornet" Barbato, the star player on a Chicago ice hockey team, is in terrific physical shape and gives this formula "feel good" movie whatever vitality it has. Bobby is mugged after a game in the parking lot by a young boy and his teenage gang; he ends up begrudgingly giving a helping hand to the belligerent kid while also dating the boy's mother. Director Robert Mandel, a stage director who made an impressive movie debut with 1983's "Independence Day", can't shake off the sitcom cobwebs here. Everything--from the kid's perpetually disgusted expression to the exaggerated reactions of the waiter while Keaton and Maria Conchita Alonso change their dinner orders--is underlined, slammed home. Nothing in the picture feels fresh or comes off natural, certainly not the ugly, combative dialogue by the three screenwriters, Alan Ormsby, Bob Sand and Harry Colomby (also the executive producer). Back to the plot: Alonso is next in line to get hit by the gang of punks (who apparently have nothing else to do but bully this family). By the time Keaton tracks them down (with help from the kid), you might be wishing for the typical assembly-line finale with an important hockey game hanging in the balance. * from ****