Product: A League of Their Own (Widescreen Edition) [VHS] (1992)
Rating: 4.0
Just shy of a homerun
A little too sentimental for its own good, "A League of Their Own" comes up just shy of a homerun.The bittersweet comedy is the true story of 1943's all-woman baseball league, put together to satisfy baseball fans while the male players went to war.Geena Davis, Lori Petty and Madonna star as the women determined to prove their mettle and disprove the popular belief that "girls" can't play the game. Tom Hanks co-stars as their lovable, perpetually drunk coach, and Jon Lovitz appears in a scene-stealing cameo.The film more or less follows the pattern of most sports films, setting up the conflict that will eventually pit sister against sister in the climactic championship game.It's testament to director Penny Marshall that the film mostly manages to rise above the clichéd storyline, at least until the awkward epilogue, which forces emotion instead of letting it unfold, and reduces its characters to caricatures.A League of Their Own isn't quite in a league of its own, but it's pretty close.