Has Elements of Comedy, Drama and Romance

Rating: 6/10 (26 September 2015)

"Conor O'Neill" (Keanu Reeves) is a gambling addict who is suddenly finding himself in real financial trouble. It gets so bad that he is forced to go to a friend who works in the Chicago stock exchange and begs for $1200 in order to pay off some people it's best not to mess with. Quite unexpectedly, his friend makes him an unusual offer in which he will pay $500 a week if Conor agrees to help him coach a minor league team of black kids living in the projects. It's then that his friend decides to skip out and essentially leaves him all by himself. Although he is promised his money he realizes that in order to field a team he needs two more kids and they are being held back by a mean teacher at the school who refuses to let them play. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie I will just say that it attempted to combine several different cinematic elements into a fairly cohesive plot and succeeded to a certain extent. For example, it had elements of comedy, drama and romance but none of them seemed to overwhelm the other—at least for the most part. It also starred Diane Lane (as "Elisabeth Wilkes") who is always a welcome addition to any film. On the flip side, however, there were a couple of occasions when the acting just wasn't sufficient for the situation at hand which made the movie seem a bit uneven. Even so, I enjoyed the movie and as a result I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.