At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

The topic was quite interesting, especially to Chicagoans, namely the 1919 Black Sox scandal when it was discovered by suspicious reporters that several of the White Sox players were deliberately playing badly during several crucial games which would have brought the Sox into the World Series championship, and its aftermath.So where did this movie fail? Basically, it tried to cover too much with too many characters-the players, the managers, the reporters, the fans, anyone connected, so that the film lost focus. Nobody is developed, and it takes a scorecard to figure out who is who and what is going on. We don't learn exactly what went on or why. Comiskey is depicted as a skinflint who had little regard for his team, but I read elsewhere that he wasn't as bad as the movie depicted. Shoeless Joe Jackson was depicted as clueless, and while he was illiterate (still not that rare in that era), that didn't make him incapable of knowing what was going on. Also, what motivated the corrupt baseball players other than greed? They weren't working for starvation wages.The movie neither works as drama or as a depiction of history.

This is based on a true dramatization of the Blacksox scandal in 1919 when the ridiculously underpaid Chicago White Sox accept bribes to throw The World Series against the Cincinatti Reds. The players involved get a lifetime ban in the MLBI must confess that I knew very little about this classic occurrence back then. I've heard a bit about it from my Father, but I wasn't very knowledgeable on the subject. It had a great cast, and I was really interested in the story, plus. I love baseball, so I had to check it out. The story is very riveting, with a very detailed account of what happened in 1919. The character development is solid with these guys, and it takes it's time telling the story, which I really appreciated. I must also commend how fantastic the baseball action was. Not only was it extremely realistic, with retro costumes that mirrored the time period with perfect precision, but it was quite exciting as well. It had a very retroactive atmosphere to it. These aren't your ordinary movie stars who try to fake being an athlete, these guys do it all. John Cusack dives at third base to snag some rough liners. Charlie Sheen runs into a wall, by catching a tough flyball in the outfield. David Strathairn looks and feels like a knuckleball pitcher. It was very well done. The court scene at the end involving the whole ordeal was intense. Performances: John Cusack is the morally superior character here. He is excellent as Buck Weaver and very likable as well. You'll feel for him a bit at the end. David Strathairn is the morally conflicted one, and his low-key, yet powerful performance was great to watch. Charlie Sheen has the perfect combo of arrogance & likability in his role, as the flashy outfielder. I loved him. D.B Sweeney is utterly stupendous as Shoeless Joe. John Mahoney is also very good as the oblivious, yet supportive manager. Michael Rooker, Christopher Lloyd, Michael Lerner, Clifton James, Don Harvey, and the rest of the cast are rock solid. Bottom Line: Even if you don't know much about the 1919 incident, this is a highly recommended viewing experience. 8.5/10

My perspective on Eight Men Out is different than most...I was an extra, recognizably (if you knew me) visible in at least two scenes. In fact, so close in focus was I that the assistant director eventually told me that they couldn't use me any more, because I had been "seen", meaning, I guess, that people would notice me in several different scenes. Not only did I learn about the baseball history depicted, but I learned about movie making, too. I worked at several of the Indianapolis shooting locations, including the Scottish Rite Cathedral, and what was then "Victory Field", the home of the Triple A Indianapolis Indianapolis Indians. It was trippy filming there, as I had been there for many games over the years as an Indians fan. For some of the shots, they couldn't get enough extras to show up to make the crowd, so they had to put cardboard cut-outs (called "standees" now?) in the stadium seats. The first day I showed up, I met the extras casting director, Avy Kaufman...she said, "I like your face", and sent me to wardrobe to get my period suit, shoes and hat---I was in! Thus began what would be a string of very long---but rewarding---days, for the grand sum of $20 per day, cash, paid out of a box in the semi-darkened parking lot. One day we did a double shift---16 hours---and got paid $40. We were fed in the same room, but not at the same table, as the actors. It was really neat being just a few feet away from these actors, some of whom I had seen in sitcoms and movies...Mahoney from Cheers, Lloyd from Back to the Future, Anderson from, among others, a Twilight Zone episode, and, of course, Studa Turkel and John Sayles. And note one other young actor in the cast: Charlie Sheen---should have gotten his autograph while I had the chance! The man who played the jury foreman, Rich Komenich had, years before, dressed up in a costume for a popular areas pizza franchise, and I had partied with him thanks to a woman I date. I remember the frequent chemical odor from the "smoke" or "fog" machine,since they fogged most of the indoor shots, apparently to cover up certain set details. Then there were the crude antique flash units we "reporters" had to hold up when when they shot the press conference held by Clifton James' character, Commiskey, the laborious to lace up period shoes that were closer to boots,the molded plastic ice cubes in the cocktail glasses we used in Michael Lerner's Rothstein scene, and the infrequent mouthing of nonsense lines to fake conversation of the background extras. If I had been a smoker, I would have been standing right next to Lerner in that scene, but I couldn't fake proficiency at a habit I didn't have. Perhaps what was more surrealistic than anything else was the contrast between how some of the extras looked in their period costumes, and how they looked in their street clothes before or after we changed...everything from gym shorts and t-shirts to overalls. I got such a big kick out of watching myself when this movie premiered the next year...realizing my screen "performance" will outlive me. A great movie and a great experience....

I saw this movie when I was in college, I think it was shown during my victimless crimes class as we were on the topic of gambling. This film was rather entertaining for a historical sports movie, though I basically knew how it was going to end. The story shows the White Sox at the beginning of the film clinching a berth in the World Series. A guy congratulates them and they proceed to ask about the bonus they were promised if they got to the series. Well apparently the owner of the Sox at the time was a tightwad and the only bonus they got was a few bottles of champagne. Well this gets a few of the players really angry, so angry in fact that they are willing to take money to throw the series and let Cincinati win it all. Very interesting movie, a good cast of characters in this one too. It even had John Mahoney who plays Fraiser's dad in it and he was great as he had nothing to do with the fix, but you could tell he knew something was up as his top pitchers seemed to be throwing like crap. The movie also says a lot about the time as who could really see any of today's major leaguers throwing a game for the scant amount of money the mob was going to give to the guys here. Seems sad in the end that the players involved, albeit underpaid, would rather be known as crooks and losers for a few extra dollars than be known as world champions.