Million Dollar Arm............Comes like a breath of fresh air...

Rating: 8/10 (20 October 2014)

I saw Million Dollar Arm on a lazy Saturday night, bored with all the metal trash thats being remade these days. Truly speaking, i was massively impressed with the script, and most importantly the performance of the entire crew.
Million Dollar Arm is basically a biographical drama story of Rinku Singh and Dinesh Kumar Patel, the first ever Indian athletes who get signed to a major American Sports League, thanks to an innovative (again "late Saturday night") idea by JB Bernstein. In true Disney style, the movie is complete family entertainer, with no violence or even PG content. The film's music is composed by AR Rahman, and the sound mixing by Resul Pookutty.
The highlight of the film are the three Indian actors, Suraj Sharma (playing Rinku Singh) and Madhur Mittal (playing Dinesh Patel) and the super talented Pitobash Tripathy (playing Amit Rohan, the ever energetic assistant baseball coach-cum-translator), all of whom get selected by JB (Jon Hamm) during his Indian jaunt. Like all sports drama films, this one too starts with a failure and JB needing desperate ideas travels to India to spot unseen talent. JB brings them over to the US, where Rinku and Madhur struggle in the super competitive environment. The saving grace to these pitchers is JB's tenant and medical student Brenda Fenwick who helps motivate them each time they return after a tired day. Basically, these five characters drive the whole story, peppered with wonderful and lilting music by AR Rahman. The stress of the performance takes its toll on JB too, as he ends up losing contract after contract, including a well marketed tryout for the best MLB clubs. Brenda strengthens bridges with Rinku and Dinesh, and JB is able to get one last opportunity to present to Pittsburgh Pirates. The last 15 minutes really lift you up as a viewer, as you really starting feeling the emotions for Rinku and Dinesh. The movie ends with an excellent musical collage of how Rinku and Dinesh made their journey from small Indian villages to Major League Baseball.
The development of self-confidence amongst the two leads is the finest point in the entire movie, and it helps demonstrate the true victory of human spirit. Million Dollar Arm is an excellent movie to watch with your whole family, especially with young kinds. The music is just excellent, and the entire crew has chipped in their best. This is surely one of the best feel good movies of the year!! Happy watching!