A Mile in His Shoes

I don't like sports films mainly because they never show the character building aspects but instead the cheats, poor sports and users abound ... dean cain is neither an actor nor a baseball coach ... the guy that played micky's father was a selfish bore ...

I was lucky to discover this film running on the Christian Broadcasting system, it's a nice family entertainment film and no overt preaching.

The basic plot outline of the story reminded me of Bob Feller who at the age of 16 was discovered working on the family farm in Van Meter, Iowa. Like young Luke Schroder he had blinding speed. Unlike Schroder in the film, Feller had his family support and his father was the one who made the decision to sign with the Cleveland Indians. 266 career wins later and Feller is in the Hall of Fame.

Feller also did not suffer from Asperger's syndrome. I've met people with that disability and some are high functioning. None channeled in the direction of throwing a baseball and learning the art of pitching. Which minor league manager Dean Cain teaches him.

The best parts of A Mile In His Shoes are some truly touching scenes with Dean Cain and Luke Schroder. They borrowed a lot from Rainman for their performances and it's as special as Rainman.

This one is a sleeper and belongs in a list of good films about baseball. I think Bob Feller would have liked it.

5.7 stars.

I'm a stickler for playing by the rules of filmmaking. When some independent movie like this one is released, I expect the scriptwriter and director to stick to the system. I was very disappointed in the presentation of 'A Mile in His Shoes' and after 48 minutes, I stopped the movie and removed it from my watchlist on Prime. Where to begin...

This is not an accurate portrayal of Asperger syndrome (I don't know if they call it that anymore, but in 2011, probably still did). Big fat no-no. If you can't get the characteristics of the condition right, DON'T bother making the movie. Watching the actor misrepresent everything about it is an automatic thumbs down. I don't blame him, it's obviously the director's fault. In reality, the character would be intelligent and likely appear to be over-nerdy, yet this guy seems more mentally challenged and prone to odd mood swings and fits, and that's not normally how it goes. He asks the coach if he thinks a tomato or an orange is more round, then he says potatoes aren't round. This is what a mentally challenged person would say, but an Asperger person would think a question like this was juvenile and half-witted. It might mimic autism, and while Asperger may be on the spectrum, they are different.

Next, I noticed the baseball games were not realistic for college play (or any play), I think the score was wrong when the other team hit a homer, the announcer said it was 3-0, and they put 2 points on the board instead of 3. Again, big fat no-no for people who watch baseball and appreciate accuracy. You get the scores wrong, it's time for you to look for another job, not only as a scorekeeper, but as a filmmaker (get what I did there?). Next, the other pitcher was apparently pitching a shutout, yet his team was like 0-12, (zero wins and twelve losses-a really bad record) so what were the odds he would be pitching a shutout if they were a winless team, and why would coach (Cain) replace him with the new guy to finish the game? It doesn't track at all.

Let's rewind to his decision to draft him in the first place. He puts this challenged young man on the team, and can he even catch a baseball? We don't know, but he grew up on a farm and seemingly has zero baseball knowledge or skills, yet he's pitching soon after and if he's never played baseball, NO, NO, NO. He'd have to learn to catch and hit the ball as well. Most pitchers have to bat at some point. It's just LAZY, LAZY, LAZY filmmaking and it's an insult to film buffs like myself.

I feel like the theme is how playing baseball can help people cope with their mental challenges. It helps people focus their special skills on the sport. It's a wonderful idea, so next time let's get it right so the audience can enjoy the movie instead of dissecting it.

This is one of Dean Cain's better performances. He doesn't have the option of being too cheesy or corny in this more serious role. That's the only upside of this experience, but it was short-lived.

Very beautiful, film with special people, especially autistic people, especially attract me, a special film about a special team, all beautiful and delicate...

"A Mile in His Shoes" was not the worst touchy-feely movie I've ever seen, but it definitely is not near the top (which speaks much to the amount of touchy-feely movies I watch)...

The movie has Dean Cain, which really means it has that one guy that you recognize but have no clue what his name is... you just know you've seen him in movies before. And honestly, he wasn't awful... I was actually expecting much, much worse.

In the movie, Dean Cain plays baseball coach Arthur Murphy, who coaches a local semi-pro team who seems to only play one team the entire movie... seriously, every game in this movie is versus a team from Fargo... there is no other opponent featured. Anywho... Coach Murphy is sent to talk to a young kid, Mickey, from Indiana who has Aspergers Syndrome, but his parents have no desire to have him play professional baseball. Mickey's only baseball "experience" was throwing apples at a metal pan on the farm, which should illicit any thinking person to ponder how they know about this kid and why they'd pay him to play professional baseball.

Anywho.... Mickey has Aspergers Syndrome, which is a form of high-functioning autism, and they couldn't have missed the mark any worse than they did. As someone who has worked with kids with Aspergers Syndrome, it was actually kind of difficult to watch. Kids with Aspergers are generally very intelligent and often very poor in social skills... Mickey was quite the opposite on multiple fronts. Yeah, there are special cases, but if you're gonna make a movie about Aspergers, find a middle of the road type of example to work with... it just works better.

So Mickey plays on the team and is well liked and is actually pretty good. That's all I'll say about the synopsis of the movie.

I wasn't on the cast of this movie, nor do I know EXACTLY what it was they were trying to accomplish by making it, but I can't imagine it accomplished its purpose. I'm sure it was rather low budget (if not, their financial folks should be fired forever)... but that doesn't excuse making a poor example of a neurological disorder that is actually pretty important in our culture right now. From a production standpoint, outside of Dean Cain, the acting was awful. Mickey's dad, Clarence, was maybe the most painful acting performance I've had to watch in a while. The actor who played Mickey, Luke Schroder, was not good either... more training and coaching on how to act his role would have gone miles for this movie (pun very much intended).

My wife and I saw this movie on Netflix, and seeing the description, we decided to watch. We weren't upset we picked it—we would have turned if off otherwise—we just wish Aspergers Syndrome was portrayed better... and maybe, just maybe the movie wouldn't have been so bad.