Wish Man (2019) * * * (Streaming on Netflix)

 

Directed by:  Theo Davies

Starring:  Andrew Steel, Fay Masterson, Kirby Bliss Blanton, Tom Sizemore, Frank Whaley, Bruce Davison, Danny Trejo, Robert Pine, Steven Michael Quezada, Jason Gerhardt, Julian Curtis, Dale Dickey

Wish Man is heavy-handed at times, awkward at others, and shamelessly manipulative.   But it is heartfelt with moments of absorbing power, and the fact it is unpolished and imperfect makes it feel more like life.  Like many biopics, some of the facts are obscured in favor of dramatic license, but Wish Man isn't about the facts as much as the emotional moments. 

Wish Man tells the story of Frank Shankwitz (Steel), an Illinois-born Arizona highway patrol officer with abandonment issues and a drinking problem.    Following his parents' divorce, Frank's indifferent mother Lorraine (Masterson) moves him to Arizona, mostly to spite Frank's caring father who only wants to see his son.    Young Frank finds work in a remote diner run by the caring Juan (Quezada), who becomes a father figure and soon his caretaker after Lorraine abandons him.   Oh, and Lorraine lies about Frank's father, claiming he died in a car accident while on the way to visit him in Arizona.    

Fast forward to 1980, Frank encounters a drunk driver on the highway and subdues them following a scuffle.   Fellow patrolman Tom Wells (Whaley) comes to the scene and proceeds to beat the stuffing out of the couple with his flashlight.   He later pins this on Frank, mostly because the victims were so drunk they could barely stand, let alone figure out who beat them up.    Frank later is involved in a serious crash in which he claims to have died for a few minutes before being revived.    While home on the mend, and being looked after by the new department secretary Kitty (Blanton), Frank is served a lawsuit by the drunk couple and develops a pill addiction which is only dealt with briefly.

One day, a friend of Frank's captain (Pine) makes a request:  A young boy dying from leukemia would like to be a patrol officer for a day.   The friend says he is a big fan of the show CHIPS, and wouldn't you know who plays the friend?   Larry Wilcox, who played Jon on the hit 70's show.   Talk about meta casting.   Frank volunteers to help the boy realize his dying wish, and these scenes are touching without being schmaltzy.   The idea for the Make-A-Wish Foundation was born then, and Frank soon puts the dream into action by starting the foundation after all of the police brutality business clears itself up.

Frank is played by Australian actor Andrew Steel, who is big, burly, and gives Frank vulnerability and dimension.    We see from the plaques on his walls that he is a dedicated patrol officer, but happiness has eluded him, and he hides his sadness in drink and sarcasm.   Wish Man is heavy on flashbacks to Frank's unhappy childhood, and these visits to the past set up some sweet payoffs later on, especially when Frank reconnects with his now elderly father (Davison), who lost track of his son years ago.

Wish Man is far from perfect.   Some of the dialogue is corny, and the movie spends more time on Frank's attempts to clear his name in the police brutality case than it does on the foundation.    In fact, the foundation itself is formed following a scene of dialogue and handled in the movie's epilogue, but the genesis is there in Wish Man, and it is not deep, but surprisingly compelling.