Feel Good Movie.

Rating: 5/10 (13 February 2015)

It's rather like a cable TV movie, which starts out funny, becomes a bit gloomy, and then ends on a transcendent note. And there's not an unpredictable moment in it.
That's not necessarily bad. When we encounter a ritualized narrative like this, it can be relaxing. There may not be thrills galore or laugh galore or anything else galore, but it's a fixed point in a changing and disappointing universe, like a church service.
John Hamm is a sports agent or some kind of promoter who is running short of clients and needs to find a super pitcher to sell to a baseball team. He's all business. That's why he's able to drive a gold-plated Bugatti and live in a Los Angeles house that Frank Sinatra might have approved of. He has a sexy tenant living in a cottage in his backyard but he has no time for her,.
So, with the backing of an inscrutable Oriental angel, he goes to India and recruits two young guys who bowl at cricket games. They've got speed up the मलाशय but they're wild. Their pitches go all over the place.
The naive kids are brought back to Lower California and subject to discipline and training. Hamm shows little interest in their progress because he's too involved with pimping his services to other clients. The kids are terribly homesick. They've never seen a big city; they don't know what a baseball mitt is. They eat too much pizza or accidentally drink alcohol and puke in his spiffy sports car.
The inscrutable Oriental insists that the agreed-upon time limit is observed but the kids aren't quite ready and they fail their first public test because they are nervous. A cloud of gloom. Hamm is angry. The Indians are ashamed.
Cherchez la femme. Lake Bell emerges from the cottage in the back yard, gets to know the kids, seduces Hamm, and together Bell and the Indians humanize Hamm. He gives up all his other clients and fully commits himself to the job. The kids throw him a lavish party and Bell is Hamm's date. She wears a sari and sports a bindhi.
And they all live happily ever after -- we're led to believe.
I can't really recommend it because so little of it shows any originality, but the performances are pretty good. Alan Arkin shows up long enough to collect his paycheck. John Hamm could be interesting in another cinematic context. He sort of looks like a movie star and has a husky voice. It would be nice to see if he has any range or whether he's headed for television. I didn't find Lake Bell's character appealing -- perceptive, candid, full of common sense. And her voice is that of a locomotive grinding to a halt.
But if you don't feel like answering a challenge, if you just want to stretch out and watch a warm film full of human interest, this is your huckleberry.