Susan Granger’s review of “Sherman’s Way” (Starry Night Entertainment)
In this coming-of-age story, uptight, pampered Ivy-Leaguer Sherman Black (Michael Shulman) has always been dominated by his rich, politically ambitious, controlling mother (Donna Murphy), who steered him to Yale and fast-tracked him into a potentially lucrative career in law.
One day, while riding on a New York commuter train with his girlfriend (Lacey Chabert), she dares Sherman to perform one simple, spontaneous act – and he’s unable to. Then she asks him to come visit her in California over the summer. He declines, explaining that his mother has arranged a superb internship at a prestigious law firm. But then he begins to think…..
So Sherman heads West, hoping to surprise his girlfriend and discovers, instead, that she already has a new beau. Furious, he storms out of her house and hitches a ride with Palmer “Bomber” Van Dyke (James LeGros), a former alpine skier in the 1984 Winter Olympics who is still gliding on the coattails of that fleeting glory. But when Sherman hops into the car, he loses his wallet, depriving him of his accustomed wealth.
Palmer assures him he can crash with his buddy D.J. (Enrico Colantoni), a master chef-turned-auto mechanic who lives in a trailer in the middle-of-nowhere. And from these two scruffy-yet-endearing men, Sherman learns how to swim, how to fish, how to drive and, gradually, how to chill, unencumbered by pressures of time, money and success.
“Time’s just a loose reference,” Palmer tells him as the three of them work to restore Palmer’s stolen 1975 MGB roadster which he plans to give to his estranged son for graduation. And Sherman discovers a fulfilling relationship with Marcy (Brooke Nevin), a free-spirited clerk in a local store.
Written by Thomas R. Nance and directed by Craig M. Saavedra, it’s familiar and formulaic, so on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Sherman’s Way” is a schmaltzy 5, whimsically entertaining if entirely predictable.
