utterly tedious romance film

Rating: Null/10 (8 April 2000)

Getting ready to watch a Kevin Costner movie is like preparing for a siege: one needs to stock up on a hefty assortment of supplies because, if there is one thing we can be sure of, it's that we are in for a very long haul. Actually, as Costner movies go, this 138-minute film is relatively short - though its glacial pacing makes it seem eternal anyway. For sheer, unadulterated tedium, this movie is, at the very least, a match for Costner's previous romantic opus, "Message in a Bottle."
Directed by Sam Raimi, "For Love of the Game" seems like a film caught in a movie genre limbo. Half reverential baseball movie and half sappy romance, it seems catered to satisfy two widely disparate audiences that wouldn't be caught dead standing in the same line at the local cineplex. Perhaps, this is a pitch to come up with the perfect date movie (though "Titanic" beat them to it - romance for the ladies, sinking ship and mass death for the boys).
Costner, in another of his near-catatonic performances, portrays Billy Chapel, a 40-year old, soon to be over-the-hill pitcher for the Detroit Tigers who, in a single day, learns that his team has been sold, he is about to be traded to the Giants and his girlfriend of five years is leaving right that very moment to start a new career in London. This set-up might have resulted in an incisive study of a man caught in an age-limited career learning to cope with the inevitable trauma of saying farewell and moving on. Instead, the writers settle for a stale movie romance, with Chapel standing on the mound, pitching his final game and flashing back like mad to the happier days of ballfield triumphs and blossoming true love. The film is ostensibly concerned with Chapel's success on the diamond but he soon learns that even pitching a historical no-hitter and being carried around in triumph on the shoulders of adoring team members and diehard admirers is mere ashes without that one true love to share it with. The screenplay, in fact, is so heavily weighted in the direction of the affair he is having with Jane (Kelly Preston) that baseball fans are sure to feel slighted - until the very end.
Even in the ballpark, though, the film is a failure. Why do so many movies, including this one, treat baseball as some sort of holy rite, some sacred mission replete with corny imagery, nauseating pep talks and cliched, slow motion views of tear-soaked faces amid the euphoric masses? The detrimental effect of "Field of Dreams" cannot be overestimated. Just once couldn't we see a film that treats the sport for what it is - a fun pastime, completely devoid of sentimentality?
I will say one thing for this movie though: in comparison to itself, it does make baseball look like a fastpaced sport!