For the love of the woman!

Rating: 7/10 (15 August 2002)

Looking over some past accomplishments by Kevin Costner (Message in a bottle, The Postman, Tin Cup, not to mention Waterworld), I rented this film with some reserve. I've felt that his pictures are so often about this dark-grey hero, which everyone ends up admiring at the end while he has sacrificed everything for the good of many. For the love of the Game is similar, as we follow a baseball player at a cross road in his life, and what might be his last game. However, I did enjoy this film as the story was so much more a love story of an ordinary, often lonely man, rather than focusing purely on the heroic part of the story. The game sequences were very well done, and for someone like me that doesn't know anything about baseball, nor have I enjoyed watching it in the past, I was swept along, fully capturing the exciting atmosphere of the game. Having said that, the story line is still pretty thin, and the result could have been disastrous if it wouldn't have been for the good chemistry between the lead actors. The character of Jane Aubrey, played by Kelly Preston, was a bit under-developed from my point of view, and some of her decisions seem to contradict what she stood for, being on one site this independent woman, while at other times being what she herself insisted she didn't want to be, a Grubbier. The filming and twinning together of the game we watch and the flashbacks into his life are well done and smooth. You don't have to love baseball to like this film, and if you rent it only because of the baseball connection I'm sure you will be disappointed. This is a nice little love story where Kevin has toned down his usual larger-then-life character. 7/10