My review was written in April 1987 after watching the film on HBO/Cannon video cassette
"Miracles" is another casualty of the video revolution. A top-of-the-line production shot in Mexico in 1o984 by Orio (with a reported $10,000,000 budget), pic received a negligible regional release in July 1986 ahead of its current home video availability. Without the simple (and remunerative) video cassette option, Orion might have given this one a little push theatrically.
Pic in fact is fitfully entertaining, but hampered severely by writer-director Jim Kouf's antiquated premise, which unwittingly recalls the Cecil B. De Mille approach of the late silent era. As implied by its title, all events in the film are connected, ever so tenuously and always unconvincingly by divine intervention At first it's cute, with lightning bolts and falling rocks setting into motion slapstick occurrences which literally mean life or death for the hapless protagonists. Eventually, the conceit becomes annoying.
Screwball farce is set into motion when an Indian witch doctor in some unidentified Latin American country prays to the heavens for assistance in saving his chief's daughter who is dying. North of the border, the first few of many lightning bolts cause disruptions which bring together inept bank robbers Paul Rodriguez and Christopher Lloyd with just-divorced surgeon Tom Conti and his lawyer wife Teri Garr. Rodriguez kidnaps the duo and Lloyd files the four of them to that Latin country to escape the police.
Predictably Contin ends up at the Latin village afte4r numerous misadventures and saves the little girl, who had an appendicitis attack. By film's end the bickering couple is back together, remarried in a Spanish ceremony.
Way overreaching (his early credits include the script for the horrendously static 1982 comedy "Pink Motel"), filmmaker Kouf evidently was aiming for the 1930s romantic farce, replete with stars Conti and Garr dressed in formal evening clothes throughout, plus the expansive "Romancing the Stone" adventure grafted on. Alas, they ar4e hardly William Powell and Carole Lomard, and though it is fun to watch Garr's patented, fast-talking explosions, Conti is seriously miscast. Attempting a neutral, American accent, he is not believable; in any event, the pic calls for a superstar personality, not a talented character actor. Conti's other 1984 starring assignment, "Saving Grace", similarly was given only a token release via Columbia.
"Miracles" has outstanding technical credits, including the late John Alcott's crystal-sharp lensing. Terrence Marsh's large-sale and wide-ranging production design, as well as impressive stunt work and special effects. A series of fun set pieces do not a movie make.
