The one problem within the show (or at
least I thought so) was that HBO
showed too much of the flaws that took
place on-set; the errors; the fights,
and not enough of what was going right
with the picture. To anyone, including
me, it could've been sending mixed
vibrations toward the quality, but I
still needed to give this flick a
shot. The end result, however, is
quite impressive despite some
weaknesses.
Ultimately, Stolen
Summer is about faith, adolescence,
growing up and religion. The film
tells the story of an eight year old
boy (Pete O'Malley, played by Adi
Stein) whose teacher is convinced that
Pete is going to Hell due to his
constant messing around during class.
Nervous about this, Pete decides to
embark on a quest that would involve
assisting a Jewish person to reach
Heaven. The local Rabbi, Rabbi
Jacobsen (Kevin Pollak) is enchanted
by this and agrees to help Pete in his
quest.
Subplots include Pete's father, Joe
(Aidan Quinn), on a road attempting to
persuade Pete's older brother, Patrick
(Eddie Kaye Thomas) into not going to
college but working in the city. Joe
did not go to college due to
economical reasons and is trying to
make Patrick follow the road he had
taken back in those days. Patrick is
far from amused by this.
Another side-story involves a
friend of Pete's, Danny (Mike
Werinberg) having leukemia. The two
build a relationship together and as
time passes, their acting chemistry
grows stronger as well.
Stolen Summer has the feel of a
Sunday night ABC Disney special on
television, but nevertheless still
shines as a well made film. The acting
across the board is for the most part
terrific, with Kevin Pollak especially
giving an exceptional performance.
While Aidan Quinn's role can be seen
as more of a cliché character, in the
long run it didn't bother me much. The
cinematography at times was a little
harsh in quality, as it wasn't a high
point to the feature but wasn't
something that downgraded the
experience either. One of the nicer
things to result from Summer is that
Jones packed in plenty of good laughs
for the audience, which does makes the
film more of a drama/comedy. And in
the end, the film touched me.
I was really anticipating Stolen
Summer and am quite thrilled at the
result. The film seemed to zip by
extremely rapidly for me, which can
only mean one real thing; I loved it,
though the film does hold a relatively
short 80 - 90 minute running time. If
it weren't for the Oscars beginning in
an hour and twenty minutes after my
show had ended, I would have loved the
story of Stolen Summer to continue on
for more screen time. All in all,
though I have heard that Pete Jones
(writer/director) had the extremely
nice advantage of holding one of the
best crews out there, which could not
always happen with the next Greenlight
series, I will still be faithfully
looking forward to the next round
(which is said to be coming up).
Grade: A-
Crowd Report:
2:30 pm PST show
Sunday, March 24
320 seats
roughly 30 people
