Movie # 2185 ........................."Three Wishes (netflix)

 Movie #2185 "Three Wishes" (netflix) Here is an example of a good director, but a lame movie.  I don't ordinarily expect much from a Patrick Swayze movie (except for a couple of titles), so when I saw the title whiz by me and noticed the film was in the capable hands of Martha Coolidge ("Real Genius," "If These Walls Could Talk," and my favorite "Lost in Yonkers") , and a bigger AND - Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio was in it, I checked out the story line --- (see below)  that looked to be interesting, so I watched it.   It was just okay --- lame in spots (due to dialogue and story line) but I liked the frame of the story --- Older guy, upset with his life, almost hits a dog in the street while his wife and kids are yammering in the car, and it reels him back to when he was a little kid in a similar situation.  That dog changed everything.  Actually, if the film stuck with that dog even more, it would have been a lovely kids' movie.  It showed a woman trying to raise her two kids, and one gets sick and she doesn't know where to turn.  A dog brings this vagrant into her house because she accidentally hits him while steering away from hitting a dog.  Swayze comes into the boys' lives at just the right time that they could use some fatherly love (their dad is away in the service).  So a nice father-son thing going on there with a mother who is trying to be strong with no dad's advice,   So why throw  some magical dog into the story that would scare the bejeebers out of any kids in the audience, and put a love scene in there to boot?  This is not a kids' movie --- not that the  love scene is hot and sexy, but I can't imagine trying to explain all the reasons why this woman would engage in a love scene with this vagabond --- it's just too adult.  There are some pretty filmic moments, the kids are great, Mary Elizabeth always is a wonder to watch, but here's an example of something that doesn't work.  It's Father's Day, and the little boy gives a shaving mug and brush to Swayze.  A possible wonderful "Aw" moment in the film.  What does Sw,ayze's character say?  Thanks but I don't shave!  Balloon bursts.  Yikes, becomes a lame moment to me.  Why show it?  Is this guy that shallow?  By the end, aren't we supposed to see him as some kind of "angel" that came to help them?  The very end works with the rest of the tone of the film, but like I said, some of it just doesn't seem to mesh.  But then I look back at the other films she's done, and I guess there are a lot of misses, and this is one of them.  I'd give it a 3 out of 5.

"THREE WISHES"   1995           PG (should be PG13)          1 hr, 55 mins

In an unexplained act of charity , Jeanne picks up an injured apparent tramp and takes him home to care for him little realizing who he was (note:  it was never clear) or the effect he would have on her life and those of her family.

Director:  Martha Coolidge

Writer:  Clifford Green (Story), Ellen Green (story), Elizabeth Anderson (screenplay)

Stars:  Patrick Swayze, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Joseph Mazello (great little boy)