Swing....and a miss.

Rating: 4/10 (16 July 2015)

By default this film earns three stars because it's about baseball and an additional one because of Clint. While the film was well-intentioned in its depiction of how "old school" scouts are slowly being replaced by young "whiz kid" number crunchers it ultimately failed with its soft, off-tangent narratives and clumsy casting. Clint was his usual self and has been pretty much been playing the same role since "Million Dollar Baby" (an excellent boxing film by the way, but I digress) while Amy Adams wasted her talents on a poorly written and poorly directed film. I don't dislike Justin Timberlake (I loved his depiction of Sean Parker in "The Social Network") but he was all wrong for this film. His overall performance was what is expected but that play-by- play call of a famous HR in the bar was really poorly executed and it made me cringe. He looked unnatural and it was evident that here was someone pretending to like baseball and not actually appreciating what a beautiful game it can be and is.
If you care to watch films about baseball and learn a bit about the sport please the following, you won't be disappointed (in no particular order):
Major League Moneyball Field of Dreams A League of Their Own The Sandlot Bull Durham Little Big League