An average movie, nothing spectacular.

Rating: 5/10 (22 September 2001)

Hardball is about a group of boys from the Chicago projects who play on what we must assume is the worst team in Little League. Until, of course, down and out Conor O'Neill (Keanu Reeves) is cornered into coaching the team in return for a loan from a friend to pay off his gambling debts. Elizabeth Wilkes (Diane Lane), the boys' teacher, is also along for part of the ride.
I apologize up front for the lazy synopsis I just gave but for a movie as generic and average as this I just couldn't spend the brain energy on making it anymore exciting than that. Now don't get me wrong this wasn't really a bad movie, it just wasn't a really good movie either. This movie seems to have a hard time figuring out what it is about. Is it about Conor's gambling problem and his attempts to not get killed for his bad debts? Or is it about a Little League team and a coach who learn to care for each other and rely on each other? Or is it about Conor and Elizabeth and their relationship? If you picked any of these answers you are wrong. It's about none of them. Oh it dabbles in all of them but doesn't really take any of them far enough to say it is actually about them. The movie seems to dip in and out of the different story lines without really advancing them or resolving anything. Take the boys and the little league team for example. They start of as the worst team on the league. By game two they are kicking butts and taking numbers. When did they learn all these skills. Were they just pretending to be so bad to lure the other teams into a false sense of security? We don't get to see Conor (Keanu) really doing any coaching or forming any bonds with the boys on the team, yet we are supposed to believe that these things happened. One boy finds out he can't play for the team because of his age and runs off to join a gang. What happens to him, not important apparently and Conor seems like he doesn't care either. And the gambling thing? Resolved halfway through and it just goes away. We don't see him making any of these amends, we are supposed to accept that it has happened. Plot holes galore, things not resolved, blech! Lazy writing I say. Now the story wasn't all bad, it was redeemed a little by the last 10 minutes, but it wasn't enough to pull this out of the average category.
Now lets talk a little about the actors. I like Keanu Reeves, really I do. It's just that he needs very specific roles. If you need someone to look lost and confused and not much else, Keanu is your man. I though he was perfect for The Matrix. Really though people, as much as some of you Keanu fans want to believe it, the man can't act. That's all there is to it. It's not like he's reading his lines off a queue card or anything like some 'actors' (i.e. pretty boy Justin Chambers of The Musketeer) he's just a little robotic. It's not a good show of your acting chops when you are outdone by a group of 10 year olds. I thought all the kids in this movie were pretty good, they were likable and they had me laughing (in the good way) a few times.
Overall this movie was not horrible and if you are deciding between this and The Musketeer (now there was a real crapper but you can go read my review for that and find out what I really thought), Hardball should win hands down. It's just that there are some better movies out there right now you should be putting your money down to see.