Maniac Magee (film)

Maniac Magee is a 2003 television film made for the Nickelodeon network, based on the novel of the same name by Jerry Spinelli. The story follows twelveyearold Jeffrey Lionel Maniac Magee, an orphaned runaway with many extraordinary and athletic talents, who arrives in a town divided with racial conflict.

In the present, an adult female character played by Jada Pinkett Smith arrives at a public park in Two Mills, Pennsylvania where she goes to watch some kids jump roping together at a park. She is also the narrator of the movie and goes to tell the story of Maniac Magee who changed the town of Two Mills forever.We go back about two decades earlier earlier to meet twelveyearold Jeffrey Lionel Magee Michael Angarano, who is an orphan. Jeffreys parents are killed by a drunk driver just after his father told him that he would show him his infamous stopball. After his parents funeral, a police officer and a woman named Dottie Freeze Melissa Bickerton who runs an orphanage approaches Jeffrey and tells him to come with them. They both appear to be lunatics, scaring Jeffrey who decides to make a run for it out of the town and across the country. All of the running seems to develop into supernaturallike qualities allowing him to run at a very fast speed. After nearly a year of running, he arrives in the town of Two Mills, where racial tensions are extremely strong. Hector Street, the main street located in the middle of the town, divides Two Mills by race blacks on East End, whites on West End. Jeffrey is confused by racial biases to him, the people are simply people heterogeneous, but with much in common, such as both kindness and cruelty. ........

Source: Wikipedia