Home Team (or, Requiem For A Steve)

Remember Steve Guttenberg? What happened to him?

He had the Police Academies, the Three Men and a Female of Various Ages, Short Circuit, Cocoon. All did pretty well at the box office. Then, there was Cocoon: The Return.

After that, Steve Guttenberg passed out of knowledge and legend; and even so much of his history is known now only to a few, and the Council of the Wise could discover no more. But at last I can carry on the story, I think.

Some background. I've just started a new job, and in my new office, they have this thing they do. Somebody saw and bought, for the princely sum of one pound, a copy of a straight to DVD film called "Home Team". And so, this film does the rounds, and those who watch it must sign the interior of the DVD sleeve, and express their thoughts. And thus, the sad, sad fate of Steve Guttenberg became known to me.

Home Team is, as I said, a straight to DVD film, starring Steve Guttenberg as a disgraced soccer pro, drummed out of the sport for gambling, and who has recently been given community service for some drunken misdemeanor or other. And he's been given the job of maintenance man in a run down children's home.

I imagine you can already see the plot from where you're standing. Initially curmudgeonly Steve Guttenburg is won over by the kids, he and the beautiful woman running the home fall in love, against the background of the kids forming a soccer team, sucking, sucking a little less, then finally becoming a decent team and winning the something or other. And yes, all that happens. If you recall The Hunt For Red October, Sean Connery is heard to say "Give me a stopwatch and a map, and I'll fly the Alps in a plane with no windows." And this is the scriptwriting equivalent. Given the total runtime, any student of the movies could predict the timing of each of these inevitable plot points without ever having seen the movie. Best way to do it, too.

Because this movie is awful. Epically awful. There is nothing - nothing - good about this film. It's not even so bad it's good. It is, however, interesting. In that it is the perfect opposite of a good film, much as a footprint is the perfect opposite of a shoe, and can likewise tell an observer much about what makes films good or even *adequate*. Poorly framed camera shots show what not to do, so much better than an excellent shot, which is so seamless we barely notice it happening. Clunking dialogue shows us how badly out of balance and equilibrium a sentence can be. Leaden performances that show us how even Tom Cruise at his worst is a hell of a lot better than this. The title says it all. They're the Home Team. A Team composed of kids from a Home. They're actually referred to as such in the film. How crass is that?

In 1984, there were two films made; Police Academy and Ghost Busters. Bill Murray was really on the fence about taking Ghost Busters; Steve Guttenberg was offered the same role, and turned it down. It's not much of a stretch, given his similar films like Stripes, to suppose that Bill Murray might have been offered Police Academy. Two seemingly equal choices, one of which takes you to Lost In Translation and The Royal Tenenbaums, and the other which takes you... here. I wonder if Bill Murray ever thinks about that, and wakes up at night screaming.