“Soul on Fire” is a touching faith-based bio-pic that pushes all the right emotional buttons. It rarely misses a beat and never misses a button.
It’s about a child burned nearly to a crisp who survives through perseverance and a vast passing parade of physical and emotional supporters — from siblings and parents to doctors and nurses through orderlies on to the near-divine intervention of baseball legend Jack Buck.
An able cast and the director of “Soul Surfer,” one of the best faith-based films ever, and screenwriter of a “National Treasure” sequel and John Singleton’s “Rosewood” make this conventional inspirational drama play and pay off almost every step of the way.
And when the emotion of seeing a child suffer, admiring the persistence of caregivers and the kindness of strangers isn’t enough, the filmmakers know there are still more buttons they can push.
Cue “Don’t Stop Believin'” by Journey. The Cardinals ae playing a home game? Cue “Centerfield” by John Fogerty.
The kid needs his faith to go on living and make it through piano lessons? Let’s pick out “Amazing Grace” on the ivories.
Yes, it’s manipulative. But you can’t fault a tear jerker for doing precisely what its designed to do.
John O’Leary (James McKracken) was an avid Cardinals fan, just nine years old, when he had that accident every parent warns every little boy caught playing with matches about. He blows up himself and burns the family house down.
This traumatic scene is marked by almost shocking realism, by heroics by his siblings, and what sounds like melodramatic child dialogue ginned up by a guy who grew up to become a famous motivational speaker.
“I want to die! Please kill me!”
Nobody does. And despite the “one percent” survival chances he’s given, with burns covering 100 percent of his body, a team of doctors (Iyad Hajjaj plays the surgeon) and nurses — including physical therapy Nurse Roy (DeVon Franklin) treat little John and his family is taught how to communicate with him until his burned lungs and voice box recover.
Losing his fingers, despairing of his lack of mobility and vastly diminished future, John doesn’t want to go on. But his story gets around St. Louis. And when Baseball Hall of Fame announcer Jack Buck (Willim H. Macy) gets word, he goes for a visit and a little pep talk.
That becomes the first of many. The Cardinals get in the World Series, and there’s Jack Buck, offering words of encouragement over the air for “the kid” with long odds of ever recovering.
Those “long odds” follow John out of childhood and into college, where the badly-scarred teen (Joel Courtney) becomes everybody’s favorite drinking buddy. He’d love to ask out the pretty physical therapy major Beth (Masey McLain), but “Why would any girl like that want me?”
And as the narrative jumps back and forth in time, we see shy, stammering and guilt-ridden John as a successful adult building contractor urged to speak to a Girl Scout troop and overcome that latest obstacle to become a famous public speaker and published motivational memoirist.
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