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"For Love Of The Game" is one of those movies where the actors help the movie to rise above the kind of material that they have to work with. The interesting part of this mixture is that half the movie works perfectly. The other half is occasionally successful, but mostly just comes across as a cliched, formulaic "Hollywood" mess. The film stars Kevin Costner as aging pitcher Billy Chapel, at one time one of the league's great pitchers. He's still a great pitcher, and destined for a spot in the hall of fame, but on the mound today, it's a different story: a little older, a little more pain after each pitch. The film starts off with Chapel preparing to pitch what looks to be his last game on the mound: he's about to be traded, or he can choose retirement. As he steps on the mound, he begins to flash back about what he's done to get him here, and what's happened in the past years of his life, mainly his on again and off again romance with a writer named Jane Aubrey(Kelly Preston). The two meet cute when her car breaks down just outside of New York City. He invites her to a ballgame, and it goes from there- eventually he meets her daughter(Jena Malone) and becomes a bigger part of her life. Why I don't care to go into more detail on the romance is because it's not the better part of this film. Costner is perfect as a baseball player and always has been perfect playing in sports roles. On the mound in "For Love Of The Game", Costner plays Chapel with wit and grace, talking himself through each pitcher as he makes his way towards a perfect game. In his romance with Jane, he's not as perfect. The problem is, neither his nor Preston's character is given anything beyond stale and predictable situations. Occasionally, the two characters do hit on an actual, real moment of pure romance and it works. Preston's character though becomes a little too all over the place. One moment she's ready to be with him, next minute she wants nothing to do with him. Either way, during parts when Costner's character is being a jerk to her I could hardly believe that she wouldn't leave for good. Still, I must say that Preston does the very best with the role she's given. But still, it really is when Costner is playing ball in his final game when the film really worked, for me at least. Writer Dana Stevens is more consistently successful here than she was with "City Of Angels", but the most interesting jump is for director Sam Raimi, who comes to this film after helming such wildly stylish horror films as "Army Of Darkness" and last year's thriller "A Simple Plan". This film does have a really nice structure in the way that it balances the current events with the flashbacks, but it could have certainly used a more defined visual style. It's all "soft focus"- the kinda Hollywood romantic film look. The film does go on a bit too long at nearly two and a half hours, but I think that the performances by everyone involved certainly pulls us through the running time. I liked how the suspense starts to build as Chapel makes his way towards the end of the game, as well. This certainly isn't a perfect film- a lot of the romantic aspects certainly are a little flawed and predictable. Still, I think this certainly is an overall entertaining picture, although it isn't terribly memorable. I sat through the romance, I cheered through the baseball game. *** BACK TO THE SITE: Listing Of DVD Special Sales Back To A Guide To Current Film A List Of Current/Upcoming DVD For Sale A Guide To Current Box Office |
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