Much re-filmed in a checkered production, this is a disturbing drama with strong performance from intelligent young actors Elijah Wood and Joseph Mazzello as two brothers forced to retreat into a world of fantasy to escape their living nightmare.

When their mother (Lorraine Bracco) remarries, young Mike and Bobby find themselves at the mercy of a brutal and unpredictable new stepfather (Adam Baldwin, a decade on from his more friendly hulk in My Bodyguard).

Seeking refuge in a world of their imagination, they dream of building a flying machine.

There are some pretty simplistic, uneasy, sub-Spielberg views afloat in all this, and it remains hard for the viewer to accept its concepts, in spite of the thoroughly engaging portrayals of the two boys.

Tom Hanks is the unbilled narrator.