Soul of the Game

Very good Baseball movie that wasnt advertised much at all. If Any. I just happened to come across it on HBO and was caught. Everyone knows Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball, but not many know the events that led up to it. This movie actually brought a tear to my eye for Josh Gibson and Sachel Paige, I really felt sorry for those two. Also it was a very nice touch how Willie Mays was wrote into the movie as a whole, if you see it you will understand. Again this is a very good baseball history movie. If you are a fan of the National Pastime, then watch this film.

...Yet no one seems to really know about it, which actually fits with the subjects of the film. Most mainstream Jackie Robinson movies are about the effect his life and career had on the world (aka the white community), but this one zeros in on the black community, specifically the Negro League athletes who set a path racial integration and had to watch someone else get the glory. A strong story well-told, with a wonderful lack of sensationalism and tons of heart.

The soul of the game is a movie that follows around 3 prominent negro league baseball players with Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson and Jackie Robinson. Branch Rickey is looking to integrate the Dodgers but is looking for just the right guy to do it, he chooses Robinson who at the time didn't have as much notoriety as the other two. But he didn't have as much baggage as Gibson and a lot younger then Paige and Rickey felt that Robinson had the background to handle all of the heckling far better then either of the other two.

Excellent performances by everyone involved and the movie tells a good story about how the game of baseball and conversely all sports and if you think about it the whole world was changed in the process. If you it wasn't for the success of the movie you wouldn't have had Jim Brown in the NFL or Bill Russell in the NBA.

As a short text at the end of this movie explains, this is not a documentary but rather a movie based on historical events that takes certain liberties with them.

That probably should have appeared at the beginning, rather than being buried in the long credits at that end.

Be that as it may, this is really a very good movie with some first-rate performances.

The outstanding performance, to me, was Delroy Lindo as Satchel Paige. Lindo makes him a very 3-dimensional character. I found the scene between Paige and Rickey, where Paige so desperately wants Rickey to ask him to play for the Dodgers but will not beg for it, deeply moving. Lindo knows how to act with his face as well as his voice, as only the best actors do.

Mykelti Williamson was good as Josh Gibson, a tragic figure.

I don'.t think it's Blair Underwood's fault that he was not convincing as Jackie Robinson. To begin with, he was a strange choice, since he does not at all have Robinson's very impressive/intimidating physique. Part of the problem was that Robinson was given some weak lines, and made to come off as totally detached from the world of the rest of the players, to the point that he gets into a lockerroom fight over that with one of the other players for the Monarchs. I've read enough books on Robinson to know that, while he was well educated and a fine speaker, he did not try to distance himself from the less educated. I don't understand why that was included in the script.

I also thought that this movie's version of the first meeting between Rickie and Robinson paled next to its equivalent in both *The Jackie Robinson Story* and *42*.

Especially in the earlier part of the movie, there were moments when it seemed as if the script writers had simply copied passages from books into the dialogue. That seemed rather stilted.

All that said, however, I think this is a fine movie, and one that will interest not just those with an interest in baseball history, but more generally those who enjoy a good film with at least some well-developed and portrayed characters.

This is a great movie. With accurate depictions of Satchel Paige, John Gibson, and Jackie Robinson, this is one of the unsung great baseball movies of the mid 90's

Great performance by Delroy Lindo as Satchel Paige and a good story line.. If you are a baseball fan you will love this movie, if you aren't you should watch it to become informed about some trials faced by african-american ballplayers