The best of Costner's sports efforts - a home run

Rating: 10/10 (20 September 1999)

I liked all the other Costner sports flicks a lot (It is his forte), but For the Love of the Game is tops! Bull Durham was a whole lot of baseball with a dose of romantic comedy. Field of Dreams was 100% baseball fantasy-drama. The current effort is a perfect mix of baseball and romance. It is really two movies woven skillfully into one which accounts for its relatively long runtime(137)for a film of this genre.
This is easily Costner's best effort in a long time and Kelly Preston is perfect opposite him. It's funny but every time I see Bull Durham again, the fact that Sarandon is now "with" Tim Robbins destroys the Sarandon-Costner chemistry for me. Fortunately Travolta is nowhere to be seen, so the Preston-Costner mix plays very well, especially since it is heavy on romance and very light on sex.
This is one of those movies I walk out of wondering what it was that caused it to be PG-13. No drugs, not a hint of violence, and no nudity. In retrospect, I suppose there was a gratuitous swear word or two at most and what romance doesn't have a suggestion of sex. For my money this is more G rated than what you see on network sit-coms these days, especially Fox. Take the family and enjoy!!!