On the plus side of this movie, there's the classic beauty of Talisa Soto. On the minus side, there's a sentient biplane, a guy who looks like Hobo Yahweh, three annoying kids who all need a good smack, Dean Cain as a heartthrob deadbeat dad, Miguel Sandoval as a narrative toilet and
well, pretty much everything else. Even an all topless musical number with Cleopatra, Helen of Troy and Marilyn Monroe wouldn't be enough to salvage this production.
The story opens on some indeterminate Caribbean island with the wedding day of Mercedes and Frank (Talisa Soto and Miguel Sandoval). Mercedes' bratty son Gabriel (Kristian de la Osa) ruins the nuptials by taking an out of control truck ride with his two doofus friends (Juan Piedrahita and Carmen Moreno). Then a pilot (Dean Cain) is forced to set his biplane down on Frank's plantain fields. The pilot and Mercedes make goo goo eyes at each other while Gabriel befriends the plane, which communicates with him by moving its rudder, flaps and propeller.
Instead of calling someone for help, or at least trying to contact the nearest airfield, the pilot hangs around for a few days to fix Frank's truck and then crashes when he tries to fly away. After he recovers, the pilot acts like a dick to both Mercedes and Gabriel, pushing them back into the arms of Frank. THEN the story decides to make the pilot a nice guy again so he and Gabriel can rebuild his plane into one of the most aeronautically unsafe things I've ever seen and the pilot can leave. There's also this magical hobo guy, but I really don't want to get into that.
Facing Fear is a well meaning, family friendly film, so it's hard to get too disgusted with it. This is a miserable piece of work, though. The goofy, cheesy, too-cute-by-half stuff is bad enough but it's also written so poorly. For example, Gabriel is the main character in this movie, but he's introduced to the audience as a whiny little twerp whose resentment drives Mercedes and Frank apart. That doesn't really make the viewer want to root for the kid. Then the script craps all over Frank some more by shoving Mercedes and the pilot into an infatuation, which wouldn't be a problem if Frank were cast as something of a bad guy but he's not. Frank is played as a perfectly decent fellow who, Job-like, has his life turned upside down. He's the most sympathetic person in the whole movie and that's never acknowledged by the script or the direction.
The Puerto Rican scenery and Soto look nice. Nothing else about this motion picture makes it up to average. I mean, consider the tag line on Facing Fear. You know, there's the title and then there will be a little phrase or sentence that supposed to catch your attention and tell you what the movie is all about. Well, the tag line here is "Defy your spirit". Not only does that have nothing to do with the story, it doesn't even make sense. "Defy your spirit"? How would you do that? Why would you need to? It's like three nearly random words stuck together because some producer thought they sounded cool.
Avoid this thing.
The story opens on some indeterminate Caribbean island with the wedding day of Mercedes and Frank (Talisa Soto and Miguel Sandoval). Mercedes' bratty son Gabriel (Kristian de la Osa) ruins the nuptials by taking an out of control truck ride with his two doofus friends (Juan Piedrahita and Carmen Moreno). Then a pilot (Dean Cain) is forced to set his biplane down on Frank's plantain fields. The pilot and Mercedes make goo goo eyes at each other while Gabriel befriends the plane, which communicates with him by moving its rudder, flaps and propeller.
Instead of calling someone for help, or at least trying to contact the nearest airfield, the pilot hangs around for a few days to fix Frank's truck and then crashes when he tries to fly away. After he recovers, the pilot acts like a dick to both Mercedes and Gabriel, pushing them back into the arms of Frank. THEN the story decides to make the pilot a nice guy again so he and Gabriel can rebuild his plane into one of the most aeronautically unsafe things I've ever seen and the pilot can leave. There's also this magical hobo guy, but I really don't want to get into that.
Facing Fear is a well meaning, family friendly film, so it's hard to get too disgusted with it. This is a miserable piece of work, though. The goofy, cheesy, too-cute-by-half stuff is bad enough but it's also written so poorly. For example, Gabriel is the main character in this movie, but he's introduced to the audience as a whiny little twerp whose resentment drives Mercedes and Frank apart. That doesn't really make the viewer want to root for the kid. Then the script craps all over Frank some more by shoving Mercedes and the pilot into an infatuation, which wouldn't be a problem if Frank were cast as something of a bad guy but he's not. Frank is played as a perfectly decent fellow who, Job-like, has his life turned upside down. He's the most sympathetic person in the whole movie and that's never acknowledged by the script or the direction.
The Puerto Rican scenery and Soto look nice. Nothing else about this motion picture makes it up to average. I mean, consider the tag line on Facing Fear. You know, there's the title and then there will be a little phrase or sentence that supposed to catch your attention and tell you what the movie is all about. Well, the tag line here is "Defy your spirit". Not only does that have nothing to do with the story, it doesn't even make sense. "Defy your spirit"? How would you do that? Why would you need to? It's like three nearly random words stuck together because some producer thought they sounded cool.
Avoid this thing.