This is definitely a tv movie. There's no mistaking it..Especially watching it now, here in 2024, almost 2025 (the future!) on crystal clear, high resolution, high definition flat screens of today. And honestly, this movie is so eighties, it's just too sweet and innocent, it's almost a fantasy.
I lived and was old enough to know that it wasn't just all ooey-gooey back then, either.
Maybe not at pessimistic as now, but far from perfect in 1987. Not bad at all, but not dreamlike, like it is here.
First off, I never really get why this dude bailed on his family.
Oh, they attempt to explain it but it doesn't seem realistic.
Probably because it's a twentieth century television movie, but there's no alcohol or drug abuse, no mental illness. No criminal history.
You haven't seen this guy in twenty five years, you don't know what he's been up to.
I'm just saying.
And his running buddies? His co-hobos as it were.
They all seem pretty functional.
What are they all doing out there?
And why give Gerald McRaney's character, Charlie, such an extensive back story? It's too complicated and unnecessary for a tv movie like this.
He's a widowed former steelworker who hobbies in woodworking and used to live in Pennsylvania before relocating his family to Utah and becoming a police officer.
What?
Okay.
At one point, Barnard Hughes, as the title character, actually makes his grandkids a huge stew in a garbage can. A new can? Okay, cool. A used can? Gross!
And I know it's a movie, but still, 25 years gone and you're just going to up and leave your children with this man?
I don't think so.
And again, it may be 1987, but they're treating the tramps here like they're all Charlie Chaplin or Boxcar Willie.
It's fun to watch because it is so ridiculous but it does have an overall sweet message.
Don't eat stew out of garbage cans.
