Stano

My husband and I love sports movies. This is my first review because I was shocked by the low rating. We both loved this movie. It was slow at times but never boring. A very good, clean movie that told a good story. We only rewatch certain movies every year and this will be in our rotation. My husband loves baseball and I hate baseball but we both stayed up too late to watch the rest! This has 4.9 IMDB rating Super good!!!

Im gonna call this the Rocky of baseball. Anybody who rates this a 1 or 2 has no patience or no heart. Awesome movie and I hate baseball

This is a story of redemption of a man who unintentionally murdered a man and ruined his potential baseball career as a top prospect. After 19 years in the clink, he's out and trying to ease back into life. He finds a job as a minor league coach and realizes he still has game and can crank a fastball a long way. Will he be able to make a miraculous comeback while battling angry people who still have a bone to pick? This was certainly a positive feeling movie that handles topics without finesse yet is still rather palatable. Sort of like slammin' down a Big Mac in the car during a road trip. There were some genuinely good baseball scenes but some characters arcs are rather abrupt an unsurprising. Far from award-winning, it is still a decent story that leaves you upbeat. It was interesting to see Sofía Vergara not in her "Modern Family" character; a first for me.

Sonny Stano (Joe Manganiello) has been in prison 18 years. When he was young, he got into a fight and ended up killing a guy. To make matters worse, he had been a hot baseball prospect for the New York Yankees and as a result of his crime, he lost that chance. However, after being released from prison, he is given a chance to work as an assistant coach for a minor league team. Amazingly, through this, he manages to impress his bosses and they decide to offer him a contract...as a player. But at 38, does Sonny stand a chance of making the majors? And, what about his life outside of ball...can he manage to create a good life for himself or is he destined to just do what many ex-cons do....end up back in the joint?

This is an interesting film since the love interest for Sonny is played by Sofia Vergara...Joe Manganiello's real life wife. As for Manganiello, his performance is VERY subdued and his character is not exacty a talkative guy. I know this will frustrate many viewers, though for an ex-con, his behavior was not unusual. Apart from Manganiello's very restrained performance, I also think some viewers probably disliked the ending...which is very vague and anything but what you'd expect. I didn't mind this at all..and liked how the story concluded.

Overall, the film isn't perfect but it does offer something I really like....it's different. The film generally avoids the usual cliches and the story is engaging.

By the way, Sonny plays for the Staten Island Empires...which is supposed to be a farm club for the Yankees. In reality, the farm club in Staten Island is also called the Yankees...not the Empires.

This was an okay film to watch at home when there's nothing better to watch. As the title suggests it IS slow burn, knowing nothing about baseball made it interesting though I figure had I loved baseball it wouldn't have done anything for me as there wasn't enough baseball action to be worth the praise. Otherwise it was a fair watch.