A Mile in His Shoes

The film succeeds, even though the filmmakers had to stretch the story sometimes to make it work. One instance was having the rival manager bail the antagonist out of jail so he can pitch against his former team in the inevitable climactic championship game. A Mile in His Shoes is a Thomas Kinkade (the "Painter of Light") production, and is clearly striving to be a wholesome baseball movie that encourages compassion and understanding toward the character with Asperger's Syndrome. Characters generally treat Mickey (the pitcher with Asperger's) with a great deal of patience and understanding and consider him a friend and teammate. The acting is above average for productions like these, and is not the heavyhanded production some might expect, even with the occasional Christian and biblical themes and references.

As the title implies, the movie goes to great lengths to make the viewer empathetic to Mickey's perceptions and understandings of the world around him. Flashbacks and internal point-of-view go far to help people to understand Mickey and Asperger's. Even though the climax is fairly predictable, it is this sense of empathy that has viewers rooting for Mickey and the team who brought him into the fold without judgment or scorn.