Love and... Baseball?

Rating: 8/10 (13 December 2006)

"Making love is like hitting a baseball: you just gotta relax and concentrate." In what is not your classic sport movie, the focus of Ron Shelton's Bull Durham is on the relationships of the players to each other and to the team's number one fan, Annie Savoy. Played by Susan Sarandon, Savoy sleeps with one player for every season, the best player on the team, helping him to the greatest season of his life. Soon after the film opens, she brings Nuke LaLoosh and Crash Davis, played by Tim Robbins and Kevin Costner respectively, and lets them know that they are both in contention to be her lover. She ends up with Nuke, but the rest of the movie revolves around Crash and her finding their love connection. The movie's superb acting makes it very likable. Robbins, Sarandon, and Costner all do an amazing job portraying their characters. The storyline does not focus on the team winning and losing as in many sports films, centering on the journey their relationships take them instead. This is a very comedic movie that ties sports and love together in a very interesting and entertaining way.