Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

I loved it. Having spent my life in sport (athletics, skiing, curling and golf), I thought this film - and The Natural - really caught the spirit of competitive sports. I was also enchanted by the poignancy of the two love stories and the flashbacks really worked for me. In many ways it is a tragic coming-of-age drama with a baseball player who so very nearly made it suddenly receiving news that his childhood sweetheart (Jodie Foster) has committed suicide and left the disposal of her ashes up to him. On his way home, he recalls his past with Foster: early days as his babysitter, the time they made love, and the summer conversations they had on the New Jersey shore. He looks up his best friend played by Jonathan Silverman who has never really forgiven him for sleeping with his prom date (and this leads him to renew his relationship with that girl, now a divorced mother). He finally realizes what he must do with Foster's remains and the film ends with him casting her ashes into the wind at the end of the pier.

Watch this movie. Please forget the critics and their ratings. They are just plain wrong on this gem of a picture. A "Rotten Tomatometer" rating of 30% by the critics but a 78% by the viewing public??? That should tell you all you need to know.Imagine yourself being transported back to an innocent time in your life where everything was peaceful, uncomplicated and joyous. The best and most interesting summer of your life. That's what this movie portrays through flashbacks, flash-forwards and honest feelings portrayed by a very talented cast of actors and filmmakers."Stealing Home" is one of those movies that should have a bigger following than it does. It's been almost forgotten as a movie, which is a shame. This may be more "chick flick" than male-oriented and although has baseball as it's core, plot and relationships are at the center of the story, not sports. As a male, this is still one of my favorite movies. The story is touching, beautiful, emotional, and nostalgic while still showing frailty of life. Losing a loved one has a universal impact on those left behind.Mark Harmon and Jodie Foster head a fabulous cast of actors in this movie. Shown mostly in flashback in Billy's final innocent summer spent with his parents and his babysitter-of-all-babysitters, Katie (Foster) before heading off to play minor league baseball in the Phillies' organization, life couldn't be more idyllic on the lovely beaches of the Jersey shoreline.The movie opens where washed-up adult Billy (Harmon in current day 1987), while lost in a mid-life crisis and out of baseball altogether, is given a call to come back home to rural New Jersey and look after the ashes of his childhood babysitter, Katie, who committed suicide at the family's beach house. The story progresses in flashback of Billy recalling all the fantastic, gorgeous, funny and tragic adventures of Billy's and Katie's relationships and moments leading to where Billy is now. Flipping from current day back to the late-'60s is flawless and never throws the viewer as Billy searches for what is the "right" thing to do with Katie's beloved ashes. You meet Katie and how mature, yet oh so mischievous, she was and how teenage Billy (William McNamara) could come to fall in love with someone who treated him as the most incredible little brother she'd never had. You meet Billy's perfectly loving parents (Blair Brown and the underrated John Shea) and how much joy and unwavering support they meant to Billy while growing up. Add Jonathan Silverman as Billy's ever-horny best friend, Alan Appleby, as the comic relief and ever-underachieving wingman and you have the making of a special movie. As Billy realizes how closely his life is tied not just to baseball, but to the lives of his tight-knit family and his best friends, it reveals a complex web of love, sacrifice, and truth Billy comes to understand was meant to make him a better human being, not just a ballplayer.This movie is stunning. From the photography, the acting, the screenplay, and the excellent soundtrack. It is both funny and tragic and everything in between. It feels like a faint summer breeze blowing on you as you sit quietly on a beach chair at the ocean at your family's summer cottage. The kind of wisp of air that leaves a mark on you that you can't touch but you know it will always be with you wherever you go. It's beautiful.If you love the actors, you'll love this movie. If you've ever lost a loved one and forgot how special those times were with that loved one before it all became too complicated, this is the movie for you. It will make you think. It will make you feel. And you will remember how much love there is in this world. All you need is a push sometimes to realize how much. It is a movie about seasons of life and how precious they are and always will be. Give this movie a chance. You may find it special also.

I first watched this in the theater when I was 15, and I was bored by it. Then one night it was on cable and I decided to rewatch it. My heart is aching, because twenty years has made such a difference in how I see this movie. This movie is about loss. Lost dreams, lost loves, lost potential, lost chances of making amends. Jodie Foster was heartbreaking. A girl from a well to do family who could just never get her life together. A woman/child who in some ways was mature beyond her years but also immature for her years. Foster nails this performance, and in fact I think this is her most touching performance. In the flashback at the end where she is on the pier aching for a dream escape from her life, you can feel her want and quiet desperation. "See that's all I really want to do, Billy Boy. I want to leap off this pier and fly high in the air and hang out with the wind and drift with the clouds. And at night with the moon full and the sea wild, I'd meet my lover high on a cliff and we'd swoop down into the ocean and swim all the way down and touch the bottom... up through the dark water and break the surface! And then we'd fly to Jamaica for pina coladas. God I wish I could do that." William McNamara in one of his best roles. He played this with innocence and sensitivity, and was appealing. The downsides: Mark Harmon does his best, but I felt that at times his performance brought the film down. When he raced to fling her ashes over the pier, I wanted to be more touched but he just didn't do it for me. The scenes with Appleby were OK when they were younger, but Harold Ramis was wasted in this film. I am from East Falls, Philadelphia, so I appreciated the trip down memory lane with the Philly and south Jersey scenes. I'd recommend watching this. Today I purchased the DVD and will probably rewatch it soon.

"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.