Clichés galore and no real substance but it is amusing in an undemanding and distracting sort of way

Rating: Null/10 (11 December 2005)

When her husband dies of a heart attack, former exotic dancer Rachel Phelps inherits the Cleveland Indians  a baseball team that has "enjoyed" a 34 year slump. She immediately makes her plan clear  to make the team lose so badly that she will be able to move the team to Miami. Her first move is to bring in a whole raft of new players  deadbeats, former stars, no-hopers and such and then bring them under the management of Lou Brown, now working in an auto-repair garage. With all the players in place the team is naturally a mess and start the year as such. But can the misfits pull together as a team to make a hit in the league?
With a plot that is pretty much just one long cliché this film was never going to be anything special but it isn't terrible and it does actually manage to be amiable enough to entertain. A couple of times the narrative tries to do something interesting with the characters but it never gets to the point where you could compare it to the much better Bull Durham and really it shouldn't have bothered. Outside from this there isn't really anything that provides consistent laughs but it does manage to have a vaguely humorous air to it for most of the running time. I suppose it depends how demanding you feel when you watch it but if you accept the clichés then you'll probably buy into the relaxed air it has. This isn't to suggest it is any good (because it isn't) but sometimes it is comforting to be somewhere familiar and you can't get much more familiar than the clichés on display here.
The cast are quite impressive on paper and their collective charisma is part of the reason that the clichéd material actually is amusing. Berenger plays grizzled better than many an actor and is solid in the clichés despite not being able to do anything of value with his subplot with Rene Russo. Sheen and Snipes are both very young looking and play their roles well enough. Bernsen isn't the most convincing but he does alright (again not able to do anything with his more serious subplot though). Russo is totally wasted but Ross, Haysbert and others in the team are reasonably enjoyable while Whitton delivers her character well.
Overall then, hardly the greatest film ever made, or even that good a film but one that just about does enough to be enjoyable if you are in the mood for it. Trading almost totally on clichés the film was never going to be anything special (and it isn't) but the sequels indicate that there must be a market for even stuff this derivative and I suppose that it pretty much delivered all I wanted on a very lazy Sunday evening where I didn't want to think.