Some great baseball, but poor drama

Rating: 6/10 (17 September 1999)

FOR LOVE OF THE GAME Summary: Billy Chapel is an almost 19 year veteran starting pitcher for the downtrodden Detroit Tigers franchise. He is scheduled to pitch the final game of the regular season against the New York Yankees. Chapel begins pitching the best game of his career, and in-between innings he thinks about his rocky romance with women's magazine writer Jane Aubrey, his friendships and memorable moments with players on the team, and growing up playing baseball. He contemplates the biggest decision of his life: will he give up baseball and go after Jane, who could be his true love, or should he stay with the sport of baseball, his true love for most of his life?

Cons: -Poor script: the romance unfolding can be predictable many times, Jane Aubrey character not written well, and some of the lines are just plain bad -Poor execution of the big "emotional" moments of the film--Costner and Preston seem more awkward than tear-jerking -Poor baseball atmosphere: Yankees stadium is supposed have the loudest, rowdiest crowd in baseball...but the crowd's chants and cheers and jeers lacked volume and sounded pretty weak -Glaring errors: the baseball announcers say the Tigers have two hits while the game scoreboard says they have none, people say Chapel pitched in the 1987 World Series while a flashback shows a banner saying he was in the 1984 World Series...um, what happened during post-production? Didn't someone catch these???
Pros: -Costner's acting during the baseball scenes are great, and the rest of the cast plays their roles well; Kelly Preston did what she could with her Jane Aubrey character -Movie recreates TV coverage of the baseball game perfectly, with good play-by-play announcing and fine presentation -Besides the glaring baseball errors and the poor crowd noise, all of the baseball scenes are very well done and seem almost real at times -Cinematography can be very good and very interesting, although a little uneven and overdramatic at times
Final Thoughts: Poor script ridiculed by overused twists and cliches for the big romantic and emotional portions make the film seem bland and it hurts the movie a lot. The poor crowd noise and glaring baseball errors are just mind-boggling and unforgiving to me...thankfully Costner's passionate performance as a player, as well as the fine execution and presentation of the baseball scenes save the movie from sinking like the worthless rock it could've been. It's worth a rental, but nothing more. In fact, if you want a good baseball drama, please go rent FIELD OF DREAMS instead!!!

*****BOTTOM LINE: 5.5 out of 10. Above Average.*****