Heart and Souls (1993)

Heart and Souls (1993)

6/10

Starring

Robert Downey, Jr.

Charles Grodin

Kyra Sedgwick

Tom Sizemore

Alfre Woodard

Directed by Ron Underwood

Heart and Souls starts with a brief introduction of the main characters and dives into a thrilling ride of how they wasted time growing with a child instead of learning why they are still very much around after they died.

Here is a movie which refused to look at the idea of heaven or hell, but sticks with the idea of recycling. Where death is not the end of every soul, but the beginning of that souls next recycle to a new body. The movie enjoys the sentimental feeling attached to a little child’s imagination, but in this movie what others call an overactive imagination is young Thomas Riley’s reality.

The actors all pulled out the best in each other and I never felt like one was overshadowing the other. Each delivered their performance in a memorable yet loving way that will make it hard to forget the talent displayed on the screen. Done in 1993, this comedic fantasy drama film will make you happy and sad, the movie deploys all the needed knacks it can to make you want to tear up and it also packs with it, enough laugh to keep you in check with the fun that awaits

I have to give kudos to Downey for his performance in this movie as he at times had to act like the characters with him and in each performance, although not perfect he did a believable job.

The movie plot introduces us to four passengers and a driver on a bus all heading to different places for different reasons. The four passengers were, Harrison Winslow, a stage fright actor and performer who lost a job when he could not find his voice in the audition. Penny Washington, a single mother of three heading to work for her night shift. Milo Peck, a small-time thief who was trying to make amends for a crime he committed and Julia a woman working in a bar who had to get to a boyfriend she just turned down and now regrets.

The bus driver was distracted by a couple fooling around in their car and drove the bus off a bridge which led to the death of the five of them. As that happened a young child was born named Thomas, they were drawn to the child by a force they did not know, and they stood with him as he grew.

The time came when Thomas behavior of talking to himself was getting out of hand and in the process of helping the four get a thrill he got in trouble. The four-dead people could only be seen by him so when he said they asked him to do it, it seemed Thomas was evading responsibility. The fear that they would ruin Thomas life made them disappear from him, but still hung around him until he was grown (Robert Downey Jr.).

Now time is running out for them, they had to get Thomas to see them again and help them round up their unfinished business before their souls were recycled.

Here is a movie I grew up watching as a child and the fond memories of it are still with me as I see it now.