Base balderdash

Rating: 5/10 (10 February 2010)

Probably helps a lot, watching this film, if you're American and of course, a baseball lover, neither of which I am, so maybe I'm a bit out of line marking down this sometimes entertaining sports/sex-farce. That said, being British and a lover of cricket, I think I'm safe in saying it will be a long time before Hollywood makes a cricket movie, let alone a cricket / sex farce! I wasn't even aware there were such things as "baseball-groupies" or "Annie's" as I believe they're called but as ball-game slappers go, it has to be said that Susan Sarandon's Annie Savoy and her young sidekick Millie, certainly offer an understandable come-hither attraction to the dumb grunts who make up the baseball team's ranks.
The acting by the A-list cast is very good, Sarandon in particular scoring (no pun intended) as the inexhaustible, Durham Bulls fan with a novel way to bring on young talent in the team, well supported by a a very young looking Tim Robbins as her number one draft pick this particular year and Kevin Costner as the seen-it-all-before old lag who arrives to encourage Robbins' character in more traditional manner but who likewise falls for Annie's charms and ends up competing with his protégé for the squiring rights.
Like I said, a lot of the baseball terminology and action pretty much passed me by, although I did enjoy Costner's universal roll-call of sporting clichés to Robbins for his first major television interview. The sex-scenes are perhaps a bit seamier and steamier than I would have anticipated, but probably acceptable enough given the battle of the sexes going on here. One thing I couldn't get over though was the interjection throughout of 50's imagery for what reason I couldn't gather, for instance, Sarandon in her first scenes is wearing 50's style attire and vintage rock and roll songs crop up regularly throughout the soundtrack.
On the whole I was reasonably engaged by the characters and the humour of their interaction before they all got the endings they each wanted. Not quite a home run for me then, but I wouldn't have taken a walk and avoided the film if it had been offered to me (I think that's a baseball term!).