A magnificent film

Rating: 10/10 (11 September 1999)

Just got back from the sneak preview of this movie, and I loved it! Kevin Costner is Billy Chapel, pitcher for the Detroit Tigers. He finds out that he is moved up in the pitching rotation to pitch in the last game of the season, and then also learns that the team has been sold, he is going to be traded, and his girl friend is breaking up with him. All in all not a good day. As he takes the mound to pitch, he begins flashing back to one day five years previous when he meets Jane Aubrey, played by Kelly Preston. So begins his relationship with her. It's a tentative thing at first but it grows over the period of flashbacks as Billy continues to throw a masterpiece of a game. He meets Jane's daughter Heather played by the very good Jena Malone.(The only problem I really had with this movie is that she wasn't given a whole lot to do, and she has the ability.) Billy isn't put off by Heather as Jane expects he might, and the three begin to grow close as they spend more time together. John C. Reilly(from Boogie Nights) continues his winning streak of great character parts as Gus, the Tiger's catcher. The manager of the team played by JK Simmons wants another catcher to be behind the plate at the beginning of the movie, but Chapel refuses to throw to anyone but Gus. His career is ending and he has a decision to make about when exactly it will end, the way he lets the owner know is very appropriate. Meanwhile, the perfect game is going on and Jane is watching from the airport where she purposely misses the flight to London where she is to begin a new job(she's a writer) to see the end of the game, and Heather is in her dorm at USC also watching the game. I got the feeling that while she may have been just friends with Chapel, she would have liked it just as much as if he had been her father. The ending of the movie was satisfying and Costner is now 3-3 in his baseball movies. It isn't often that they do sequels to sports movies, but this is a movie I'd like to know what happens to the characters involved after the credits roll.