Baseball, love and Costner

Rating: 7/10 (6 February 2001)

Baseball, can there be a greater game in the world? To my opinion, no. Baseball has been America's favorite pastime ever since some schmuck had the nerve to hit a ball with a stick. This is what Sam Raimi has tried to portray in this movie. A sleugh of other movies have come before this one trying to depict what goes on on the field during an important game of baseball, and what happens outside it during the off hours. But never has an entire game been presented during the span of a single movie.
This is what makes For Love Of The Game special. As an audience you are sitting next to the players and in particular Kevin Costner while they go through an entire game of baseball. Here's the premise:
Costner is Billy Chapel, a veteran ballplayer who, on a fateful morning, has his girlfriend leaving him, his boss telling him he is selling the team (Detroit Tigers, yuch) and he gets the news that if he doesn't quit he is going to be traded to the SF Giants (even more yuch), and to top it all off he has to play an important game against the New York Yankees (YEAH!!!) that same day. During this game he pitches he reflects on his life as a player and as a lover.
This is unfortunately where the movie goes wrong. The images portrayed in the baseball match are so vivid and compelling that when Costner thinks back to his past the lovestory takes the back seat and you want nothing else than go back to the game and see if he can really throw the Perfect Game. Kelly Preston as the girlfriend just doesn't cut it, she is never a match for the power of the game and that's a shame.
Costner has to by now acknowledge the fact that he is made for just two movies: Sports movies (Bull Durham, Tin Cup) and Political Situation movies (JFK, Thirteen Days). He is great in this pic, his athletic abilities are absolutely convincing when he performs this role of a pitching star nearing the end of his career at 40. Geeze, he pitched all the balls himself, no CGI was involved there. Although he lulls into some melodrama at times during the love story sequences, but this is more the fault of the script then him.
The rest of the supporting cast was great. John C. Reilly was brilliant as ever as buddy catcher Sinski. Even little Jena Malone pulled off a good performance considering the material she was given. A lot of the players on both the home and the away team were real ballplayers, this gave an authentic feel to whole.
The baseball sequences were shot exquisitely by John Bailey and directed to near brilliance by Sam Raimi. It was nice to for once see into the heads of these players, the mechanisms they use to filter out the audience and to hear the ball hit the mitt with such power was exhilarating. I have never had the pleasure to even see someone pitch a Perfect Game, but this came real close.
There is just one fact that bugged me entire: since when do the NEW YORK YANKEES lose to the Detroit Tigers? It was painful to see my team lose like that.
7/10