Mark Harmon realises he needs to play baseball after Jodie Foster kills herself in 1988's Stealing Home. Among the many '50s nostalgia movies of the 1980s, this is certainly not one of the best. It's kind of relaxing, though.
Although Mark Harmon gets top billing, he has relatively little screentime as most of the film is told in flashback to when he was a kid in the '50s and '60s. He had a crush on his rebellious babysitter, Katie, played by Jodie Foster.
The music, awash in light jazz saxophone, never lets you forget this movie was made in the '80s, despite repeated uses of '50s rock songs. It sounds like Moonlighting.
The kids who play Harmon's character are pretty bland but it's nice watching Jodie Foster have fun, flirting with the kid and taking him swimming or lounging beside him in a swimsuit.
The best part of the movie is when Harold Ramis shows up in the last act, when Harmon finally takes over as the lead. The best line in the movie is at a bar when Harold Ramis looks at a reproduction of William-Adolphe Bouguereau's "Nymphs and Satyr" and says, "Would you look at the butt on that nymph!" I suspect the line was improvised.
In case you're wondering, the film never addresses the motivation or circumstances of Katie's suicide.
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