Sorry, there something off here

Rating: 5/10 (24 April 2005)

Filming of one of the all-time great baseball novels is a hit-and-miss affair. Redford plays phenom sidetracked, due to bizarre circumstances, from the major leagues until his mid-30s. Atmosphere is great, particularly the Knights' wonderful home park (War Memorial Stadium in Buffalo, now history). The supporting cast led by Brimley is uniformly good. But there's something off and it's hard to put a finger on it. It may be that things just all seem gothically over-played. And the upbeat ending spoils the message of the original story, where the bitter climax largely defined the tale. Sort of like filming Titanic without the icebergs. If the book wasn't so inspired it might be less of a fault, but given the wonderful source material to work with this movie deserves no more than a 5 out of 10.