michael robbins ' hardball is quite the cinematic achievement .
in about two hours , we get a glancing examination of ghetto life , a funeral with a heartfelt eulogy , speeches about never giving up , a cache of cute kids ( including a fat one with asthma ) , a hard - luck gambler who finds salvation in a good woman and a climactic " big game , " where the underdogs prove to have a bigger bite than anyone ever imagined .
all that 's needed is a guy getting hit in the nuts and a food fight to have the first film solely based on cinematic clich ?
s.
i ca n't wait to see the deleted scenes when it comes out on dvd .
obviously
, hardball is a strikeout of a movie that never gets the bat anywhere near the ball .
it stars keanu reeves as the aforementioned gambler , who seems to owe every bookie in chicago an amount of money that rivals the gross national product of guam .
out of solutions , he begs his successful corporate friend ( the always welcome mike mcglone ) to lend him $ 5 , 000 .
instead , mcglone offers reeves the chance to help him coach a youth baseball team from the projects for a nice weekly stipend .
reeves , who wants to keep his fingers , accepts the offer , but discovers mcglone is only too happy to let him handle the team entirely .
the drowsy - voiced protagonist must teach the sassy inner city kids the baseball basics in a life of absentee parents and merciless gangs .
and maybe , just maybe , they 'll play in the big championship game .
one of the glorious surprises in the screenplay by john gatins ( summer catch ) , adapted from daniel coyle 's non - fiction book , is that there are n't any .
the movie coasts from heartfelt moment to heartfelt moment like a zombie .
that would n't be so bad , if the characters had an ounce of subtlety or humanity to them .
most of the kids ' time is spent yelling at each other , talking in slang and acting surprised .
there 's little that 's naturally amusing about them , as they all seem to know the cameras are rolling .
the worst of the lot is a tough - talking younger player ( dewayne warren ) whose sole purpose , as the movie unfolds , is being an emotional pawn , a tactic so utterly despicable i ca n't find the right words to express myself .
the adults also do n't fare well .
reeves is impressively uninspiring as the down - on - his - luck loser .
the character is poorly written , but reeves gives another charisma - free performance .
every time he speaks , he sounds like he just got up from a long nap and is gradually waking up .
kids are supposed to rally around this guy ?
diane lane , who co - stars as reeves ' obligatory love interest , remains a glowing screen presence ( see my dog skip for better proof ) .
it 's too bad that her role here consists of uttering lines like , " these kids trust you , and they do n't trust anyone ! "
then there 's d. b. sweeney as an evil rival coach and john hawkes as reeves ' scummy betting buddy and other unoriginal characters you 've seen before and
hope never to see again .
i wanted hardball to be good .
robbins ' varsity blues was a funny and alternately taut tale of texas high school football that had ali larter smothered in whipped cream and jon voight sneering at everything that moved .
i have n't seen robbins ' goofy ready to rumble in its entirety , but i am intrigued that " macho man " randy savage and martin landau can exist in the same movie without there being serious worldwide repercussions .
robbins obviously needs to go back to his forte -- making sports movies for guys and not cutesy , cuddly pap such as hardball , which also manages to annoy and insult the audience .
here 's hoping that happens in the immediate future .
Output: N