Curveball flies straight

Rating: 6/10 (3 October 2009)

For the Love of the Game Sam Raimi throws a curveball and goes for the sports movie/romantic comedy mash-up starring Kevin Costner. The topical aside is matched by something not often seen in the average Raimi movie: subtlety and care. Luckily he pitches it good and it keeps your attention through a decently long playlength and a lot of character. Costner is never all that great and this certainly isn't one of his best roles, but there are moments when he delivers quite well--usually while he's on the sand talking to himself; the love relationship is a very well written one but it sort of suffers from Costner's lack of affect. No biggie there as it's more than made up for a tense building of parallel dramatic arcs that come to their inevitable happy conclusion in a not-unpredictable, but still satisfying way.
You can tell that Raimi enjoyed taking a break from thrillers and splatstick to clear the mechanism and play catch for a little while. Kevin Costner must have enjoyed having his parents play his parents, and for what it's worth everybody else seems to enjoy themselves too.
--PolarisDiB