El reto

Tonight I attended a sneak preview of the movie Hardball with a 10 year old boy in tow. Hardball shows the very gritty, dangerous life of some inner city kids who are not only trying to survive, but to find some-thing worth caring about- in this case, baseball.

Though not playing to a sold out house, the audience was very loud and enthusiastic, even breaking into cheers at points. I thought the storyline was predictable (bum coach becomes a better man and gets the girl, kids learn teamwork and sportsmanship) and similar to other movies about kids sports teams. What is unique to this movie is it's view of the kids off the field- their lives in housing projects, the dangers, drugs and problems they face just living every day. It's a daring and very affecting storyline, and the cheering of the audience proved to me that it worked very, very well.

Very solid jobs by cast, including Keanu Reeves, who does a fabulous job as the shiftless/compulsive gambler/reluctant coach who becomes much more to his team after realizing these kids actually have a rougher life than his own. This role seemed as well-suited for Reeves as The Matrix...and he didn't even look good doing it. [He does clean up and flash the famous smile near the end!]

The kids steal the show here- and the audience I sat with fell for them as hard as their coach did! Lots of sniffling and clapping in the house. My son loved the movie, too, the moral themes are well wrapped up in the story and not sappy.

Some rough language, disturbing scenes of housing project life and the gambling/bookie world, some sexual references, one death. However, I would grab the kids and go if over first grade. Good opportunity to talk to the kids about winning/losing, drugs, violence and education. Best see it with your boys film since the Mighty Titans scored a touchdown. You may want to go again...

This is a stressful movie, with the gambling addiction and the gambling machine on one hand, and street gangs on the other. I really like the kids and think Keanu Reeves plays it straight with them. New York Times and local reviewers aside--way aside, this movie is definitely worth a look. I spent eight years on Chicago's South Side, and i'm grateful a cinema team is willing to show some emotion about some of the stuff that is part of grim daily life. The plot formula is good: i don't like cold voyeuristic slice-of-life with this material. I like that the material is used with an up-beat ending. Let us enjoy the entertainment of it, and find some hope in it. Goethe said that hope is always the better choice. And i will say it here: Keanu Reeves can act.

Due to alot of negative reviews on this site I did not expect the movie to be as good as it was. However after watching it this evening I was delighted by the entire experience. While I agree that it goes along with the "ducks" formula it deviates from it by not showing us the final game with the final ten seconds for the team to win. It spared us that and just let us know with the final credits that the team won. I thought the performances in the movie were excellent, although even I (living here in the deep south) found the accents of the children a little difficult to comprehend. As for the overall effect of the movie it entranced me, completely, I kept having to rewind scenes to view them again and again. And, more importantly, if anyone ever doubted Keanu's ability to act then one should only view the eulogy scene to know that his critics have been simply barking up the wrong tree. Strong, emotional, sympathetic and completely believable... speaking as as part time amateur actress, do you know how hard it is to cry, and cry believably? Do you know how hard it is to make your chin tremble..? My conversion to Mel Gibson fan was watching him "cry" in Lethal Weapon... this has been my reconversion to Keanu fan..., to cry so believably in a movie is worth quids in my book and to be able to express emotion in such a way is worth any amount of praise. Wonderful movie. Go see it.

I want to start by saying that this movie was actually a pleasant surprise. Knowing that this was a movie based on a true story, made with Keanu Reeves and a lot of kid-actors in it, I honestly feared the worst. But after watching it I must say that it really wasn't all that bad.

Sure, the story is as predictable as you can get them in Hollywood. With a desperate white guy who is forced into coaching a children's sporting team from a rough black neighborhood, you already know perfectly what to expect and of course he will only keep doing his job because of a beautiful lady at first (the kids school teacher), but in the end he will learn the true value of these kids' will to win and to make something of their lives, so they can get out of the neighborhood. No the movie never gets far away from the stereotypes. But somehow it didn't bother me all that much for once.

This is probably one of the best performances I've ever seen from Reeves (except for his roles in "The Matrix" and "The Gift") and despite the fact that this movie isn't a comedy, the dramatic story is relieved with some nice humorous touches. I don't know anything about baseball and normally I don't care about movies with baseball as the subject either, but for once I kept watching.

As a conclusion I would like to say that if you are looking for an original movie, you better start looking somewhere else, but if you want to see a drama that exceeds the average Disney boundaries, you might want to give it a try. As I already said, I was pleasantly surprised by it and that's why I give this movie a 7/10.

this movie was good. the little kids were funny, keanu reeves was pretty cool. i also saw on the news the night before i went to go see this movie that there was some big black guy whining about the language used by the kids. he said that it was a "poor and grim representation of america's preseption of inner city children." um..im wondering if this man even HAS kids of his own, and if he does, he should hang out with them more often. the language of the kids was strong, but if u mean to tell me that the majority of kids living in the projects, or ANYWHERE ELSE for that matter, don't use that kind of language, get your head examined. anyway, this was a good movie and i enjoyed it.