Tres Deseos

Three Wishes

Three Wishes is a 1995 drama-fantasy film directed by Martha Coolidge and starring Patrick Swayze, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and Joseph Mazzello.

While Jane Holman (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) is driving with her two sons, Tom and Gunny, she accidentally runs into a drifter, named Jack McCloud (Patrick Swayze), who breaks his leg. Feeling sorry for him, Jane invites Jack and his dog Betty Jane to stay at her home until his leg has healed. After having some difficulties in adapting to this new lifestyle, Jack soon finds himself loved by the family and they all want him to stay. When he starts teaching baseball to Tom, who misses his father who went missing in action during the Korean War, the two of them develop a strong bond. Meanwhile, Gunny believes that there is more to Jack and Betty Jane than meets the eye, and he is determined to find out what.

• Patrick Swayze as Jack McCloud

• Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as Jane Holman

• Joseph Mazzello as Thomas "Tom" Holman

• Seth Mumy as Gunther "Gunny" Holman

• D. B. Sweeney (uncredited) as Jeffrey Holman

• David Marshall Grant as Phil

• Jay O. Sanders as Coach Schramka

In an unexplained act of charity, Jeanne Holman, picks up an injured, apparent tramp and takes him home to care for him little realising who he was or the effect he would have on her life and those of her family.

"Three Wishes" tugs at our hearts, but by the end, I was tugging back. The movie lays it on so thick that even with the best will in the world, I couldn't go along on its slow and soppy ride.

Among other things, it is about a homeless man, a cute dog, a kid who's no good in Little League, another kid who has cancer, fireworks, MIAs, being able to fly, genies, space aliens, a missing dad, a sweet mom, Zen coaching mantras, the Medal of Honor and how a man has to do his own thing. It is also about a small town, which, like all small towns in the movies, has a carnival; there must be a company in Hollywood that specializes in renting merry-go- rounds.

If "Three Wishes" makes any history, it'll be because it's the first movie about children's sports to incorporate the Buddhist approach of Phil Jackson, the coach of the Chicago Bulls, who leads his team with Zen philosophy rather than ham-handed pep talks. Even more amazingly, the Jackson-like character wins the support, rather than the hatred, of the macho Little League coach whose role he usurps.

The movie begins in the present, with a family moving out of its home because the father has lost his business. As he drives sadly away in a van filled with possessions, children and a supportive wife, he sees a forlorn figure trudging into a cemetery, followed by a dog. And that causes him to remember that, when he was a kid . . .

Now the movie flashes back to the 1950s. A young boy named Tom Holman (Joseph Mazzello) is in a station wagon with his mom Jeanne (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) and little brother Gunny (Seth Mumy) when they swerve to avoid a dog in the street, and

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