- Title: All Roads Lead Home
- IMDB: link
Belle (Vivien Cardone) is forced to learn some pretty tough life lessons at the young age of 12. She loses her mother in an automobile accident and blames her father, Cody (Jason London) an animal control officer in Kansas City, for pulling the plug and ultimately gets to go live with Grandpa Hock (Peter Coyote) who trains and sells horses, for a short summer. Cody believes that his wife’s father can help straighten Belle out and get her on the right track.
While dealing with Grandpa Hock’s cold streak, Belle uncovers a friend in Basham (Evan Parke) a work hand on her grandpa’s farm. As the two grow close and start to see the similarities between them, she notices that Basham has a kind heart towards all animals and explains to Belle that she needs to treat her grandfather with the same type of unconditional love. He believes that ole’ Hock needs a tender hand, a hug every now & then and told he’s doing a great job.
Hock was estranged to Belle at first; she was such a reminder of his daughter, but soon starts to warm up to her and changes his ways. He even gives her Atticus, the puppy that he got on the day her mom died. Atticus teaches both of them quite a few lessons.
While all of this is going on out at the farmstead, Cody and a beautiful veterinarian, Lillian Cole (Vanessa Branch), is starting a small romance while trying to uncover the mysterious deaths of house pets in the KC area. They solve the problem just in the nick of time, it’s the food, lock the doors, stop the run, we are killing the little animals of Kansas City.
Excitement arises as Basham goes to feed the prize horse and Atticus won’t let him, he even bights poor Basham. Now they have to put the dog down and everybody is sad, till Cody sees the poison food that Basham was getting ready to feed the horse and stops the entire procedure. Atticus gets to go home with Belle and Grandpa Hock becomes an animal lover and daddy Cody falls in love with Lillian…The End.
Of course there is more to the story than that, but seriously do you want me to spell the whole thing out for you and ruin all the endings?
Sappy at best; All Roads Lead Home does provide the audience with a few limited laughs and a Kleenex or two worth of tears, if you are an over emotional 12-year-old girl that is. The best part is the talented vignette from the late Peter Boyle, that really got a few chuckles out of me, but besides ole’ Pete I would say wait till the film hits the Lifetime or maybe even the Hallmark channel and try to enjoy.