Touching Home - So spielt das Leben

This film starts out very, very vanilla...the drunken father..the twin sons working at the quarry...nothing grabs you at all. It felt very 'routine' and I nearly took the DVD out and set out to return it midway through the film.

The movie also struggles to find its identity: Is it a film about baseball, alcoholism, or a love story? When one of the twins meets and befriends his teacher girlfriend, that romantic line is quickly forgotten and thrown by the wayside later in the movie. The actress simply disappears.

The father drinks himself into a stupor, yet nothing of his background possibly explaining his alcoholism is expounded upon or explained. He's just drunk all the time. He's therefore a very unlikable and almost unnecessary character - we just see a drunk meandering in and out of his sons lives.

The cinematography/locations are beautiful at times however - but pretty pictures alone does not a good movie make. The story and characters needed to be fleshed out further, particularly the father and the girlfriend. A weak effort indeed.

For me this movie is a hit or miss. The pitch is coming towards the hitter and anything is possible.

Ed Harris plays the father of two boys who grow up with major league baseball dreams, only to have them crushed by their father who's alcohol problem seems to stem from, well, I don't know, it's never really dealt with. The boys are inexorably tied up with their father's problems. But what those problems stem from is anybody's guess. There's no big speech, no big explanation, no big scene which is standard in drama's like these where the characters come together, yell, and either sort things out for the better or make them worse.

If the directors/writers/producers, who are two brothers who have some personal and family stake in the film, since they dedicated it to their father, if they just went into a little more depth with the Harris character and use his acting abilities even more, maybe deal with the psychological problems that make him drink, then this movie would have been substantially better. Instead, all we see him do is drink, then not drink for awhile, then drink some more, without any rhyme or reason as to the cause.

Things go well for the boys for awhile, then bad, good again, then bad, were perpetually going back and forth from balls to strikes with no in depth pitch to drive the audience home. Were left with a full count, the pitch heading towards the batter, is he gonna hit it, is he gonna miss, and then..........the end. How we got to that point in the game, the hit, runs, errors, everything before and in between that all led us to this movie, were just not told. Watching just the end of a game is not as exciting as watching it all the way through.

Touching Home is just one of those movies destined to become a classic and part of Ed Harris' best work as an actor. Right along movies such as Radio, Stepmom and Pollack, this ranks among his best work as an actor and it wouldn't be a surprise if he is nominated or even wins the Oscar for Best Actor for his touching and excellent performance as Charlie Winston, an alcoholic who is struggling to keep himself alive for his day to day existence. Debut directors Noah and Logan Miller make this film as realistic as it can get and their performances as Ed Harris' sons struggling to accept their father's disease. Overall great acting and a heart tugging script make this small indie film worth seeking out and seeing.

I went to this film thinking I was going to see a movie about brothers trying to play baseball in the majors, but the film is much deeper than that and blew me away. Although there is a baseball theme in the film, the film is more focused on the brothers returning to their home town and dealing with their father, who is a homeless alcoholic. The adversity that these brothers faced while growing up is truly inspiring because they are so upbeat and determined to reach their goals. I'm truly grateful that I was able to attend their screening, see them in person, and to observe that they are happy people because I am still shocked by how much they have overcome. If more people had the same determined outlook that these brothers have at reaching their American Dream, our country would be a lot more successful. I would also recommend reading their book "Your Either In or In the Way" because it divulges even deeper into their lives, and describes all of the obstacles they had to face to create this film, the biggest ones being that they had no experience in the film industry as directors, writers, or actors, zero industry connections, and no money. I plan on seeing this film again when in comes out at the end of April, and I definitely will be bringing some tissues for the waterworks.

I like Ed Harris; he is a quality actor, but I hated his character in this film. I really wanted him to die as quickly as possible because everyone connected with him would have been a lot better off. The guy even ruins everyone's Christmas in addition to stealing his son's hard-earned money. What a scumbag father; I dont care if he made some crappy album of his son's achievements. He was a lowlife who stunted the advance of his twin sons, who deserved much better than him. I had absolutely no sympathy for him whatsoever. It is his sons I really felt sorry for and the wife we never get to know.