Customer Reviews

Comeback Kid, The [VHS]

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A washed out professional baseball player(John Ritter)finds new meaning in his life coaching underprivileged kids.This is a nice feel good movie!!

I own this movie on VHS and was disappointed it is not on DVD, but perhaps it will be in the future. There is quite a cast in this family movie with John Ritter as Bubba, Susan Dey as Megan who hires Bubba to replace her former activities director, Patrick Swayze as Chuck, Kim Fields (I remember her as Tootie in The Facts of Life), as Molly, Doug McKeon (I remember him in On Golden Pond) as Michael who is the main focus, James Gregory (I remember him in a Quincy episode but the actor has been in a host of movies) as Scotty and Dick O'Neil (I remember him in Wolfen but has also been in many more movies) as Phil. Bubba seems to have lost his swing with the bat and so is removed from a baseball team the Stallions. He gets drunk, passes out in a playground, and is found by young children he eventually ends up coaching. To watch him fumble his way through unknown territory to try to reach these tough kids is mesmerizing. His biggest challenge is when Michael's younger brother is struck by a car and dies. He has to puncture their impenetrable exterior to get them to merge into one entity. In the end, when they compete at a track meet, you finally see these children helping each other as a team. A meaningful look into the lives of less-privileged children and what it meant to them to have someone develop genuine feelings for them.

Maybe not versatile in that transcendent sense, but after viewing this film, albeit its "dated" qualities, you'll appreciate a complex and gritty tendency in John Ritter's exploration of character. (Maybe he's always been that way.) The movie's also a sign of its time, unbridled, minus splashes of liberal detachment. This is earnest stuff; Susan Dey is wonderful; the ending reminds me of ones in flicks like Gallipoli, Mr. Goodbar, Bicycle Thief, Salaam Bombay, Tchao Pantin; but it's TV and somehow that adds to the tragedy, in that metafilmic way.