Bull Durham

Rating: 7/10 (6 July 2010)

Kevin Costner was in quite a few films focusing on baseball, including Field of Dreams and For the Love of the Game, and this is the one that features in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. Basically Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon) is latched onto the "Church of Baseball", and it is tradition for her to select an up and coming player from the Durham, North Carolina baseball team, the Bulls. The Bulls have introduced Ebby Calvin LaLoosh, later nicknamed 'Nuke' (The Shawshank Redemption's Tim Robbins) as the pitcher to the team, and Annie has chosen him to share her bed throughout the season. But the wild pitcher can't control his right arm swing quite right, so veteran major-league catcher Crash Davis (Costner) comes to teach him some control. With Nuke having more control of his powerful, he is described as having a million dollar arm, the Bulls are on a winning streak, and Crash convinces Nuke if he sleeps with Annie it will spoil the streak. With Nuke not being with Annie, she instead hooks up Crash, who was her original choice for star player to be with, but jealousy soon becomes an issue and a love triangle is forming. In the end, Nuke has risen to stardom that he is assigned to a higher place, Annie decides that she should probably just enjoy baseball as a game and not a way to hook with star players, and ageing minor Crash may only be able to get a job as manager for a team which he accepts, but he and Annie still stay together. Also starring Trey Wilson as Joe Riggins, Batman's Robert Wuhl as Larry Hockett, William O'Leary as Jimmy, David Neidorf as Bobby and Danny Gans as Deke. Costner is good as the old pro who coaches the rising star pitcher, Sarandon does well as the player loving groupie, but for me, Robbins stole the show with his powerful swings and lovable slightly dim-witted nature, it also shows baseball as a good game, it is certainly a sport comedy drama to see. It was nominated the Oscar for Best Writing, Original Screenplay, and it was nominated the Golden Globe for Best Original Song for "When a Woman Loves a Man". Kevin Costner was number 93, and Susan Sarandon number 25 on The 100 Greatest Movie Stars, and the film was number 97 on 100 Years, 100 Laughs. Very good!