An Honest Review

Rating: 9/10 (29 November 2016)

For a lot of Americans baseball is life affirming. There are even people out there--and at times I confess that I am one of them--who go to high school baseball games just because watching a game where the outcome doesn't matter to you is even more relaxing than watching a game you actually care about.
To some people it might be strange, but to others, hey, it's baseball and there is really no better way to spend an afternoon is there?
Some Americans understand it to be an addiction. Even now, as I write this, if I look out my apartment window I can see the softball diamond that played a key role in why I chose this cramped little hovel over so many other options. In the summer, when I get off of work, I can play a game of Frogger and risk my life crossing a busy street to see a game.
So when a movie about baseball comes out, no matter how good or bad it is, we feel compelled to go and see it.
And there a pluses and minuses. This film came out in September. There should be a law requiring all baseball movies to come out in the winter, in those long months between the crushing defeat of the Cub's last lose and the new spring hope that this year the curse might be broken.
As they say in Boston, "good luck to you and your team."
But then, it was just broken wasn't it? The end is nigh and Chicago is still here. I thought for sure that it would be destroyed in a riot worse than anything soccer has ever produced.
But that is another story.
The fact is that there are good and bad baseball movies.
Most of the good ones star Kevin Costner don't they?
Bull Durham
Field of Dreams
For the Love of the Game
The Sandlot (which didn't star Costner)
The title really explains everything you need to know about it. It's a movie made for people that love baseball. One about a perfect game.
The bottom line is that it is a movie about baseball and though it isn't as good as "Bull Durham" it is still about baseball. If you love it you love it. If you don't, well, it's still a good movie, but not as life affirming, not as wonderful, not as beautiful, not as...well, not as summer.