Plot: a busy lawyer gets involved with defending a homeless shelter that's about to be forced out of its building by a big corporate mogul. The crisis comes when Matt (the lawyer) begins to neglect his family, alienating and endangering them, in favor of his work for the shelter.
When I first started watching this, I almost turned it off after a few minutes. The acting was SO bad! Reminded me of a badly-done high school play--- fakey voices and overdone expressions and gestures. The family situation was just too trite. The lawyer's secretary was like some sort of exaggerated caricature of prissy secretaries. But it got better when Kurt Fuller came on as Matt's old college buddy with a favor to ask (Kurt is the actor who plays Father Pat in "Joshua"--- kind of offbeat personality, very likeable). The story got interesting when the scene shifted to the homeless shelter, solid performances by Kris Kristofferson as a compassionate displaced Vietnam veteran and Martin Sheen as a bewildered homeless guy. I loved the characters of Ben and Lily (Robert DoQui and Virgina Capers), the couple who ran the shelter--- full of warmth and understanding, tough but full of faith. The music by Ernie and Debby Rettino fit in just right. Vince Edwards put in a good performance as the big bad corporate mogul who wants the shelter out of the way for his big development in the city, and Joseph Campanella did a convincing (if chilling) job as the jaded judge. Most of the characters, though, notably Matt, his wife and kids, and the homeless mother who came seeking help, needed to tone it down a little to be believable. Matt's speech in the judge's chambers was melodrama at its most unbelievably melodramatic. But I still liked the movie. The thing I disliked the most was the totally unnecessary use of four-letter words and use of "God" as a swear word. I would like to have had my son watch this movie, because the story and meaning were good, but this kind of language made it inappropriate for him. Hard to understand why they put that in there--- didn't they have enough faith in the plot, dialogue, and characterizations to get the message across? Oh, well. Go figure. If you liked this movie, may I suggest "The Boys Next Door", a Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation that stars another actor from "Joshua", Tony Goldwyn, as a social worker involved with a handful of mentally/emotionally challenged men living together in a sort of halfway house.
