Major League
Sports movies have usually fared best by being done up as comedies, mostly to show a lighter side to the ultra macho mindset adopted by many of the athletes who get paid to take part in said sport, although occasionally a quality sports drama has been known to slip through the cracks as well. As such, any of these types of movies to feature the activities of a TEAM sport takes on a whole new dimension, as by definition the story and script must now obviously be written as an ensemble piece with a variety of interesting, watchable characters. And that brings us to the sport of baseball, said to be Americaâs pasttime but actually a very bland, slow moving sport if watched by a spectator, with very little flow to the games themselves while the individual playersâ statistics remain the one thing of great, continuous interest. However, while not exactly the most exciting sport to watch, baseball is said to be something else entirely to the player, a way of life that they live, eat, sleep, and breathe, and the in game dynamics, determination of strategies, and combative rivalries between players and teams are among the things that canât be picked up by watching a ball game on TV with its turgid, methodical pace. Thereâs also the matter of the scandal plagued aspects of the game in recent years, as in when Pete Rose (undoubtedly the greatest to ever play the game) was banned for life over a number of not quite proven accusations involving sports gambling (people forget that while admitting to betting on baseball and always betting on his own team to win, a number of known criminals, felons, and disreputable types had claimed that Rose was actively a part of âfixingâ games that he was directly involved in, something Rose has always denied and for which it can be said that his alleged refusal to do so probably fueled the motives of those who said he did), but in the years since baseball has seen so many obvious Hall Of Famers go down in flames mostly due to steroid use that the sins of Rose and Shoeless Joe Jackson seem almost trivial in comparison. Yet great baseball movies still abound all over the cinematic landscape, of which everyone seems to have their own favorite, and for many including yours truly it would be this 1989 classic from writer / director David S. Ward, a guy whom in his late twenties won an Oscar for writing The Sting, and here hits the mark on all the right cylinders even while most critics turned their noses up at it and officially declared Bull Durham (released right around the same time) as the best baseball movie of that era, but the moviegoing, ticket buying public tended to disagree, and itâs easy to see why: While Durham was a romantic comedy masquerading as a baseball movie involving a love triangle where the two males involved happened to be ballplayers along with having a random baseball sequence thrown in every few minutes to show these two main characters plying their trade (and it wasnât really a very good movie on even that level to boot), this film showed the day to day ins and outs of a major league team with nearly every player successfully being given a full and rich characterization. The plot hook is a real hoot, as a former showgirl played by the underrated 80s actress Margaret Whitton inherits ownership of the Cleveland Indians (at that time in real life pretty much an actual dead and buried major league franchise) from her rich, old, and now dead husband. Whitton turns out to have a plan up her sleeve though, as since she has never cared for the climate or the working class atmosphere of Cleveland, she decides to completely restructure the team by recruiting players known to be either so bad or so completely past their primes that they will finish dead last and stadium attendance will be so low that she can invoke a clause in the teamâs contract with the city to relocate the whole franchise down to Miami, where a high society sexpot such as herself will obviously be a lot happier. And so she sends her general manager (Charles Cyphers) off to bring in her handpicked list of losers to serve this purpose, with the easy to guess idea that these misfits will finally come together on their own as a team and actually win something just to defy her wishes and spite her defining the incredibly enjoyable length and breadth of the film. And indeed, Wardâs writing and casting is so succinct that it actually becomes a challenge to be able to pick a favorite character from the bunch, even while Whittonâs Rachel Phelps hangs over them all like a vulture signaling impending death. First, we have Tom Berenger as the former all star dug up from the Mexican leagues in order to play catcher and provide leadership to the team, with Berengerâs old fashioned movie star persona proving to be very adept at light comedy, with his Hall Of Fame comedic moment being when he follows his old flame (Rene Russo) to her current boyfriendâs apartment, only to surprisingly be invited in to join their guests and to be treated civilly and with respect, in a brilliantly written scene about keeping your true motives close to the vest when you have those whom you dislike actually treat you decently and engage you in light conversation, with the punchline at the end of the scene (when the boyfriend walks Berenger to the door) being amongst the greatest in movie history; Charlie Sheen as the ex con turned fireball pitcher Rick Vaughn whose wild and crazy, devil may care attitude cause him to be renamed the âWild Thingâ all while growing in his maturity level as a player while the season goes on is a role that now seems more appropriate than ever given Sheenâs crazed real life antics, but it doesnât change the fact that it REALLY is one of the best roles that Sheen has ever had, made more real by the fact that he actually was a good enough pitcher at one time to be offered a baseball scholarship to The University Of Kansas; Corbin Bernsenâs Roger Dorn, a returning player from the previous season who mercilessly hazes Sheenâs rookie and spends much of the movie with a mercenary attitude worrying more about his own financial portfolio than the teamâs chances, would appear to be the most wholly unlikable character of the group, but bounces back by the end after his estranged wife sleeps with Sheen which leads to the single best moment of the movie during the championship game when he confronts Sheen on the mound; Wesley Snipes shot himself straight to the A list as Willie Mays Hayes, a smooth talking hustler who shows up at training camp despite not even being invited and actually manages to bullshit himself onto the team by virtue of his really being a great athlete who can steal a base at will; Chelcie Ross (a lightly regarded character actor who never had a role as good as this ever again) shines as Eddie Harris, the aging, veteran, broken down pitcher who gets his fair share of very funny moments throughout the film; Dennis Haysbert made his own first step towards iconic status as the voodoo practicing power hitter Pedro Cerrano, worshipping a doll called Jobu in his locker and engaging in a mini feud with Harris over his religious preferences (when he asks for a live chicken to sacrifice prior to the big game, the gang bring him a bucket of KFC instead); Bob Uecker (Mr. Baseball himself) contributes his own special brand of humor as Harry Doyle, radio commentator for the Indians who practically narrates the game scenes with humorously colorful asides and a broadcast sidekick named Monty always known for never having anything to say; but the special, final mention must be made for the late, great character acting legend James Gammon as Lou Brown, the newly hired manager of the team (recruited from coaching for 30 years in the minors and called about the gig while working his day job in a tire shop), who comes in being expected to lead the team down the toilet and surprises everyone with his cunning acumen about the game as well as his awesomely sarcastic sense of humor, especially when dealing with prima donnas such as Dorn. It is he who steals the movie and gives it its gruff, lovable heart even though it might take several viewings to realize that. Once Whittonâs intentions are revealed to the team, it becomes their shared goal to win every necessary game to qualify for postseason contention and have a 1 game elimination showdown with the âunbeatableâ New York Yankees (portrayed here as the biggest bunch of scumbags to ever don pinstripes), and unlike the off kilter Durham, all the reasons that many have for their love of the game from the shit talking (âHowâs your wife and my kids?â) and the psychology all the way down to the mechanics of game strategy make their way into the story onscreen, making one realize both the joy and heartbreak of being a professional athlete and ballplayer better than almost any film before or since, and thus giving us a splendidly written, superbly directed, and amazingly acted sports comedy classic that actually portrays its sport better than anyone else ever has before or sinceâŚ
10/10