THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 29, 1995 TAG: 9510270074
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E7 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Movie review
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, MOVIE CRITIC
LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines
WITH CHRISTMAS approaching, we'll get a full dose of Frank Capra's ``It's a Wonderful Life,'' and we'll believe in angels all over again.
Martha Coolidge is no Frank Capra, as ``Three Wishes'' proves.
Still, ``Three Wishes'' is one of the nicest movies in town, and we pull for it every frame of the way. If it doesn't quite work, we can still appreciate the effort and hope they keep trying to make films that have a little heart and no slashed throats.
In the beginning, an adult Tom Holman (Michael O'Keefe) is looking back, with some bitterness, at the summer of 1955, when he was growing up in small-town America.
Flashback. It is 1955 and American suburbs are springing up. There are basketball hoops in the driveways and the guys coming back from Korea are looking for new places to raise their families. Coolidge (who also directed the more down-to-earthy ``Rambling Rose'') does a good job at suggesting time and place.
Jeanne Holman (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) is a woman alone, trying to raise two boys. Her husband is missing in Korea, and she's slow about getting on with her life.
Things change with a hunky visitor.
She swerves her car to miss his dog and hits him. Jack, the vagabond, looks like a bum but acts like Jack Kerouac, wandering and seeking and looking mystic. She invites him to stay at her house until his broken leg mends.
The neighbors gossip. In fact, in 1955, they would probably have gossiped more than the movie suggests.
Before long, Jack is teaching the oldest boy (Joseph Mazzello from ``Jurassic Park'') how to make the baseball team while the youngest boy (played with irresistible charm by little Seth Mumy) naturally takes to having a father figure around the house.
Jack is a bit weird, though. He sunbathes in the nude in the back yard and meditates and chants.
Mastrantonio, a Broadway veteran who hasn't worked nearly enough since things like her Maid Marian outing opposite Kevin Costner in ``Robin Hood,'' turns in a thoughtful and adult performance as the lonely widow. It is due primarily to her that the film fails to become overly sentimental.
Mazzello effectively makes the change from selfish brat to All-American baseball player. He's properly vulnerable. Little Seth Mumy, the son of former child star Billy Mumy of the ``Lost in Space'' TV series, has the kind of face that makes the audience ``oooh'' and ``aaah.''
The trouble with the film is the role of Jack, which is assigned to Patrick Swayze. There is precious little evidence that Jack is a charismatic force that could change this family, and the world. It's not really Swayze's fault. He simply isn't there enough.
Swayze, backed by his director, seems intent on not letting this movie become too sentimental. He's playing a mystic, other-worldly guy, who might just be an angel - yet he doesn't want to be either other-worldly or angelic. For example, Jack chants Zen stuff to the local Little League team, but even that scene is played for realism more than for mysticism.
If you're going to make a movie that seeks to be ``magic,'' you've got to take more chances than are taken here. You've got to go out on that proverbial limb and, by golly, be ``magical.''
With only a few changes, this film could have been a near-classic. It is a near miss, but a nice one. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
BRUCE McBROOM /
Rysher Entertainment
A lonely widow (Elizabeth Mastrantonio) takes an enigmatic stranger
(Patrick Swayze) into her home in ``Three Wishes.''
Graphic MOVIE REVIEW
``Three Wishes''
Cast: Patrick Swayze, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Joseph
Mazzello, Seth Mumy, Michael O'Keefe
Director: Martha Coolidge
Screenplay: Elizabeth Anderson
MPAA rating: PG (mature themes, brief nudity)
Mal's rating: Two 1/2 stars
Locations: Chesapeake Square in Chesapeake; Military Circle in
Norfolk; Kemps River, Lynnhaven, Columbus in Virginia Beach
by CNB