Better Late Then Never

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

For Love of the Game is a film about Billy Chapel, an aging pitcher who may be pitching the last game, and perhaps the best game, of his career. This is happening on a day when he has discovered that the owner of his team is selling the team and the new owners want to trade him away. He has also discovered that his girlfriend of several years is leaving him to take a job in London. In short, at the beginning of the film, Billy Chapel is having a really bad day. Throughout the nine innings of the game that form the narrative core of the film, we experience various flashbacks that take us into the personal life of Billy Chapel.One of the things that must be said at the beginning is that For Love of the Game is derivative, formulaic, and filled with cliches. This need not be a fatal flaw. The same could be said of some of Shakespeare's best work (e.g., Romeo and Juliet). In fact, For Love of the Game provides Kevin Costner with his best starring role since Dances With Wolves. There must be something about baseballs. Two of Costner's better films from the past are Bull Durham and Field of Dreams. The basic role is similar to Costner's role in Bull Durham, the aging but wise team veteran. In its symbolic view of transcendent moments and meaningful relationships, For Love of the Game has more in common with Field of Dreams.The film is based on a novel by Michael Shaara. Shaara previously wrote the book that was the basis for the film Gettysburg ("Killer Angels"). The screenplay adaptation is by Dana Stevens whose previous writing credits include City of Angels. While it may seem like a weird combination for a baseball film, with Director Sam Raimi at the helm this film really works. One of the reasons it works is that, like Field of Dreams, this is not really a baseball film.This is a film about the human spirit and our longing for transcendence. Years ago, I played on a softball team in league competition. It's the bottom of the ninth, men on second and third, two outs, and I'm at the plate with a 3-0 count. I'm ready to take the walk. I was a pitcher, I knew the strike zone, and that year I was leading the league in walks taken. My older, and occasionally wiser, brother was our coach, and he pulled me aside and told me to go for it. I was batting .750 that year, and the guy behind me in the line-up was struggling. Frankly, I would have preferred the safe way out. Let the other guy take the heat for losing the game. Inspired by my brother's confidence in me, I swung at the next pitch, and hit a double to win the game. That was more than twenty years ago, but I remember that moment to this day, because it was someone else's confidence in me that gave me the courage to reach for the stars.In the final analysis, that's what this film is about. Baseball becomes the context, but the theme is the yearning of the human spirit for transcendence and meaning. What makes this film worth seeing is its emphasis on camaraderie and espirit-de-corps. In many films like this (e.g., The Natural) the hero finds his strength within and triumphs against the odds by superhuman effort. Billy Chapel's saving grace is his brokenness. It is his willingness to acknowledge his need for others that allows him to triumph in the end. While there are clearly elements borrowed from other films here, the final product is fresh, inspirational, and fun.

Detroit Tigers Veteran Pitcher Billy Chapel (Costner) has always been better at baseball than at love. Just ask Jane (Preston), his on-and-off girlfriend. After a bad season, just before he is about to start in what could be his final game, Jane tells Billy that she's leaving him...for good. Now with his career and love-life in balance, Billy battles against his emotional and physical limits as he strives for a Perfect Game. For Love of the Game Director Sam Raimi fails to deliver the Sports, Romance Drama that he wanted to give to his fans, Kevin Costner and Kelly Preston do have a nice chemistry together and their both fine in this film but the movie focuses more on their boring and long relationship threw some flashbacks that get annoying after some time and honestly they aren't even interesting at all. We never see Billy's relationship with his Parents, his Friends or anyone else and even if we do it's only for a few seconds and some great actors such as J.K Simmons and Brian Cox are useless enough and even if you cut them out of the picture the movie would still be a big mess. It does have some good moments and the acting is fine but the actual plot and the boring love story gets you out of the film's actual experience. (5/10)

Billy Chapel (Kevin Costner) is a worn-out 40 year old former ace pitcher for The Detroit Tigers. He's given the start of last game of a disastrous season against the Yankees in NYC. The Yankees are looking to clinch the East with a win. Tigers' owner Gary Wheeler (Brian Cox) has just sold the team and the new owners want to trade Billy to the Giants. His best friend is his catcher Gus Sinski (John C. Reilly). His girlfriend Jane Aubrey (Kelly Preston) tells him that she is taking a job in London. He has the best game in awhile pitching a perfect game. The movie flashes back and forth from the present to his life courting Jane and reconnecting with his daughter Heather (Jena Malone).The movie tries so hard with every baseball cliché. It doesn't add anything original that other Costner movies and The Natural doesn't already have put out. Every pitch is striving for sentimentality. The baseball stuff builds to a pretty compelling ninth inning. That's kind of what happens in a real baseball game. The bigger problem is that the romance is as bland as it gets. The romance lacks any bite or surprises. It's the least compelling thing in the movie. At least the baseball stuff works a little even if it is cliché.

This movie is WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too long, and that's not the worst of its problems.Perhaps the worst of its problems is that it tries to be two very different movies.On the one hand, it tells the story of a great major league pitcher, as he recalls the last several years of his life while pitching what starts out as an unimportant game and ends up becoming the most important game of his career. It is the story of a man who triumphs over adversity - pain in his shoulder, etc. - to pitch a last, great game.On the other hand, it's the story of a man who, off the field, becomes involved with a woman who only causes him trouble. She wants him to NEED her, and by the last scene, though he has pitched a perfect game, which is enough to put most men on cloud 9 for the rest of their lives, he tells her that he NEEDS her, they kiss in what is supposed to be a very romantic public kiss, and one imagines that the producers thought that would win over large audiences of middle-aged women.I can't watch this movie as a stereotypical woman - that's not how nature made me. I can only say that, for me, the romance was constantly aggravating, because the protagonist allowed himself to become and remain involved with a woman who constantly wanted him to choose between her and his real passion, baseball.But do many women really expect men to subordinate their non-romantic passions for them and tell them that they NEED them? Not that they love them, which is completely understandable, but that they NEED them? I don't know.So this is what the movie is about, and it keeps going on, and on, and on, with more incidents. The story simply does not merit going on over 2 hours about this.If you're looking for a baseball movie, this is likely to disappoint you. If you're looking for the story of a man who comes to the realization that NEEDING a woman is more important than accomplishing something important in his life, maybe this is for you. If you even exist.