Hamm's Million Dollar Arm.

Rating: 6/10 (15 June 2015)

Million Dollar Arm (2014): Dir: Craig Gillespie / Cast: Jon Hamm, Lake Bell, Madhur Mittal, Suraj Sharma, Bill Paxton: Based on a true story with a title that physically references the arm strength of two Asian teens with arms for baseball pitching. It also refers to the Jon Hamm seeking them out and what his presence means to them. Hamm plays a sports agent down on his luck and after watching cricket on TV he decides to seek out talent in India. The culture references are interesting as Hamm settles in and produces a contest that would have the winners sent to America to train for baseball. There is two impressive contestants that are packed up and sent to the U.S where predictably, they don't fit in and Hamm constantly feeds them pizza because he doesn't know how to relate to them. That's not the end of it. We are given a useless romantic subplot with Lake Bell as a nurse neighbour and the idiotic hints at a relationship. She is all sweet and giddy and totally should have all her scenes in the deleted section on the DVD release. The best performances are from Madhur Mittal and Suraj Sharma as the two Asian potentials struggling to become the next big baseball stars. It is fun watching them try to adapt to Hamm's massive house but eventually we arrive at the obvious conclusion. Bill Paxton is also strong as a coach who is sceptical about the success rate of these two new players. Directed by Craig Gillespie who previously made such diverse films as Mr. Woodcock and Fright Night. Despite the formula Mittal and Sharma bring meaning to the opportunities they are given. Score: 6 ½ / 10