Little Boy

     Little Boy Starring Jakob Salvati (as little boy), Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, David Henrie, Michael Rapaport, and Emily Watson. 

     We went and watched this with the family when it was in theaters, so it's been a while since I've seen it, but I remember it well enough to write the review.

     Little Boy is about a boy who loves his dad.  He's small for his age, and gets picked on by a lot of the kids around town, but his dad makes all his problems go away.  They are best friends.  When WWII breaks out, James Busbee (Little Boy's father)signs up to fight for his country.  He writes home regularly, but when his unit is attacked, the letters stop coming.  Most of the town assumes he's dead.

     Pepper Flynt Busbee (little boy), goes to the Father of his church to ask for a miracle.  He wants the Father to pray for God to send his dad home safe.  The Father says that miracles are rare, and he would have to complete several tasks to obtain one.  One of the tasks is to befriend the only Japanese man in town, Hashimoto.  Pepper hates this idea because he believes it's the Japanese's fault that his dad left in the first place.  To make matters worse, the whole town is pretty prejudice against the old Japanese man, including Pepper's brother, London.

     Pepper wants his father home so badly, he decides to befriend the old Japanese man.  Hashimoto, isn't too keen on letting the boy get his hopes up, and is resistant to the friendship.  Tempers flare as the town thinks Pepper is a traitor, even his own brother turns against him.  Little Boy keeps his faith through the whole ordeal, and even causes an earthquake with his faith (or perhaps the timing was just right, and it was all a coincidence). 

     This was a heartwarming movie, but they seemed to try too hard to push too many values down the audiences throat.  You can't help but get emotional over the boy's undying love and faith that his father will make it home, but they throw so many other lessons in the movie that it gets a bit sappy.  The story of the boy having faith to bring his father home would have been enough, but there is also a story of tolerance, overcoming bullies, family love bringing home the prodigal son, a mother being faithful to her husband, and on and on.  

     However, I can't say I wasn't entertained, so I'd have to give it