Jack The Bear

I remember watching this movie quite a bit when I was a kid. I just happened to catch it again tonight. It still has its charm over me. I know, it's quite hoky in parts and melodramatic in others, and its symbolizm usually isn't subtle at all, but it's anchored by a strange and intersting story, and wonderful performances, including Danny DeVito in a show-stopping turn as an alcoholic father (the best performance he'll probably ever do), and the amazing child actors Miko Hughes and Robert J. Steinmiller Jr., not to mention the great supporting cast, including Gary Sinise and Julia-Louis Dreyfus (and Reese Witherspoon in an early role). It's quite strange how Steinmiller and Hughes have fallen out of acting; Steinmiller's last film performance was in 1994, and he's been basically out of the business except for the occasional stage performance. He always looked to me like an all-American kid, just some normal person you could meet any day. It's a shame he didn't do more work. Miko Hughes stayed around a bit longer, playing "adorable boy in peril" in a few more films, most notably Wes Craven's New Nightmare and Mercury Rising, with Bruce Willis. He had a great little part in Apollo 13 as Tom Hanks' son. And then, after a few family films, that was it. Hughes had an amazingly mature acting ability for his age, and I urge anyone to check out his films when he was younger, particularly Pet Sematary (if you can get past the film itself, of course), his debut film and his first acting job at only 24 months old.
This is just one of those strange films that went just under the radar and could have propelled the talent involved to great things if it had been well-recieved. As it stands, it's a well-made, undiscovered gem, with strong direction from Marshall Herskovitz (who never made another feature after this, just TV and direct-to-video stuff) and a screenplay from future Oscar-winner Steven Zaillian (Schindler's List). It's on DVD now: You should check it out, you just may enjoy it...