Hardball

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...

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.

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.

It never ceases to amaze me how people can have such widely differing *strong* reactions to a film. A number of negative reviews here, but let me add one more positive.

I loved this film, from beginning to end. I loved every aspect of it: the story, the acting, the plot. I expected just another "Coach takes over losing team and makes them winners" story. Those are fine stories now and then, and I was not expecting anything more than mild entertainment. But this film moved me. Now, I'm a middle-aged white boy, and while I've never been rich I've never gone hungry either, and I've never had to worry about getting shot on the way home, so maybe I don't really know what that "sh*t" is all about and maybe this film wasn't "realistic" in portraying all that; but it communicated to me, and that's what any film is all about. And sometimes in order to communicate, you have to go half way between where you are and where the other person is, and maybe that's what this film did. But whatever, I got it.

I didn't really want to see Hardball, I went in with low expectations. So I was almost surprised when staring at the 'rate this movie' screen I gave it 7/10, but let me tell you why (and trust me I thought about it for a few long moments deciding what to give it and why). First the downside: the story was predictable in every way, it was almost painful for me to see children so young using such language and being abused in so many ways, but it was realistic. The high rating I gave it was because the young actors were so very talented, and while the story was obvious it still managed to make me care what happened and what was happening. I wasn't engrossed, I didn't sob like a baby, I didn't find it a revelation on life and death. However, it was very much what it purported to be, a story about showing up. And it did have an interesting message about how something, that to one person can be so insignificant, can be so profound and life-changing to others. Keanu Reeves gets a lot of bad press about being a 'bad actor' but I found him very believable and thought he did an extremely good job. He has a lot of charisma and an amazing ability to make you care about his characters, and want, in the end, the best for them.