Interesting framework

Rating: 7/10 (19 June 2009)

It took a while for me in watching this movie to realize the all the baseball scenes were actually from the same game, and not parts of many games. I had not read or heard of the movie before, and I wasn't actually paying close attention at the beginning.
Once I realized that the entire movie was flashbacks Kevin Costner's character was having during the course of one game that suddenly becomes a real candidate to end up as a "perfect game", I got more interested. Not that the baseball result drew me in, the entire idea for the movie happening in flashbacks during a game intrigued me.
The movie is indeed sappy, and contains every cliché, but it works anyway. Romantic dramas are going to have a lot of clichés, there's no way to avoid it. Sports movies are going to have a lot of clichés. So when you put the two together, its a cliché-fest! LOL Still, the performances are engaging and mostly come off as real. The drama at the end of the game has a body of its own. The catcher's promise near the end is something that SHOULD happen in sports, and probably doesn't very often.
Only the last couple of scenes, which happen AFTER the game, break out of the framework of the rest of the movie.
So if you don't like romances or sappy sports movies, stay away from this, you won't like it. Otherwise, its a nice film with some good lessons and a satisfying set of conclusions.