User Reviews

"Stealing Home" is a film that will resonate with a section of the movie viewing public because it presents a story which will be easily loved. Directors Steven Kampmann and William Porter, who also wrote the screen play, show they can evoke the era in which the picture takes place. Both of these gentlemen know a thing or two about how to project the right atmosphere through the use of the popular music of the time.

Although no date is given, it's clearly the early sixties when Billy and his best friend, Alan, come of age. It's the summer and they are spending it, like always, at the beach where their wealthy families seem to keep a home. There are three periods in which the film is set, once when Billy is about ten, then as a teen ager, and then as a young man in his twenties.

Throughout the film, we watch the love between Katie, the friend of the Brown family, as she babysits the young Billy. Then, as a teen ager, Billy's love for Katie is made clear and it's returned by her. Katie is six years older, it's a love that consumes them during one summer after Billy's father is killed in a car accident. The last part of the film shows us Billy returning home as he has been called because Katie has named him to be the disposer of her ashes after she commits suicide.

It's a beautiful love story, and it's easy to see why viewers love it. The best thing in the film are William McNamara, as the teen age Billy and Jodie Foster, who is Katie, the eternally beautiful Katie, who for some reason of movie magic, never seems to age. The supporting cast is excellent, John Shea, Blair Brown, Harold Ramis, among them.

This is a good summer movie to watch. It's sunniness will warm any viewer looking for a good romantic way to spend some time.

***/***** I remember watching this movie circa 1990 when I was about 12. Back then I thought this movie was great, so I rented it to see how my frame-of-reference would match up. However, I didn't like it near as much, but it is still a pretty decent movie for what it is. The "tell you how to feel" score is way too much, and if ever a film had too much sentimentality to it, this is that film. Nonetheless, there is something to be said of some of the themes and the way the coming-of-age story is executed. Mark Harmon stars as Billy Wyatt, a washed-up minor league baseball player who receives news that his childhood babysitter and friend Katie, has committed suicide. What follows is his journey home, complete with reflections on his past and his duty of respectively laying her ashes to rest. A lot of the story is in flashbacks, and we see how Billy has come to be--and what his relationship was like with Katie and others. One thing that bothered me, though, is that we were shown this background and story on Foster's character Katie, but we're never told why she killed herself? Overall, a mediocre 100 minutes of entertainment.

I am a big Jodie Foster fan and went to see Stealing Home mainly because she was in it. I thought Jodie Foster was great actually,but the movie itself didn't do it for me.

I found it very different then the previews made it out to be and at times it was plodding, as well as being very confusing as well at certain points.(I Really didn't like the flashback theme, that works in certain movies but I didn't think it worked here.) It was also rather dull, at times though, maybe it's because I'm not a major baseball fan either so I wasn't that into that part of it.

I can appreciate the premise of the movie, however, and this is one I know some disagree with me on. The best thing about the movie was Foster. As usual she gives us another unforgettable performance in another unforgettable role. I might watch it again if it was on, just for her performance. Her character was fresh and fiercely wonderful- I wish she'd been in every scene, maybe I would have stayed focused on the movie more if she had been. In fact all the performers were great and I think this movie really did have a certain sweetness to it but I just wish certain things had been done differently and maybe a bit less on the flashback sequences. The previews were also very misleading making it look different then what it actually was. Even though, I can appreciate it's appeal, I didn't enjoy it as much as I had hoped.

There are a lot of ingredients here, but probably too many as far as characters are concerned and too much time crossing back and forth to make this anything more than an adequate drama of nostalgia and regret and grief. All of the characters are likable, and certainly, Jodie Foster, then at her height, is a major draw. It starts with the element of sadness, then now grown up Mark Harmon finding out that old friend Foster has committed suicide, so he goes back home and we find out a little bit about his past and her life as a young adult and his friendship with Jonathan Silverman who has grown with up to be Harold Ramis.

The songs utilized in the narrative indicate that this was sometime in the 60's, and at the time, the young Silverman and William McNamara (who grows up to be Harmon) were late teens. Foster, in her early twenties, is flattered by McNamara's crush on her, and discourages it simply by becoming his buddy. She's a great girl for certain, attentive and caring and wise and nurturing, but of course one thing leads to another and years later, when he's confronted with the tragedy, he remembers her more than just fondly.

What do you do as a non relative who is given the urn of a suicidal girl's ashes? That becomes the major focus of the present day story, and there's not really enough to indicate why Foster's grown up character would take this way out. Blair Brown plays the lovely lady whom Harmon ends up with, and while she has some great moments, it's an underdeveloped role.

There is a lot to like in this, particularly the narrative which is sweet and innocent and villain free, a slice of Life that certainly will leave the viewer reflective of their teen years. There's also a pretty background score, combination piano and saxophone (typical of late '80s films), and the Pennsylvania country scenery is also gorgeous. The film though has little to do with baseball even though Harmon's character is a professional baseball player, just another detail that makes this seem like several stories being bunched into one, impossible to dislike, yet somehow not satisfying as everything starts to be wrapped up.