The Break

This movie was ok. I am a tennis fan, and I have to say that the portrayal of the satellite scene was overly dramatic but did paint a picture of what really does happen. This movie decided to find actors who looked like famous ones, having Robbins played by a Tom Cruise look a like and having Irons played by a Kevin Costner look a like. Even though they were mediocre actors, they were ten times better than Martin Sheen was. He did the typical give me the check effort and really didnt care about the success of this movie. Otherwise, I give this movie a 7 out of 10, a good tennis movie for all fans of the game.

Well, the film was relaxing to watch of course but in the end the viewer is bound to get tired of all the clichés in the story. All the characters, the words they speak and the things they do are utterly predictable and unimaginative. The screenplay is poorly written and the acting is not upto the mark either.

But the most irritating thing is perhaps the technical mistakes about the game of tennis. In this film the umpires call out "double fault", serves are called out by umpires, not linespeople, the deciding last set is played with tie-breakers etc. Why should a film about tennis contain such errors about the game? At least show the facts right!

Vincent Van Patten was one of the most gifted tennis players I have seen in 40 years watching the sport. His part time (yes part time) tennis career included a tournament win, early 20s in the world ranking and two or three important doubles titles with very limited professional tennis tuition. He even beat McEnroe once, was a consummate athlete and had remarkably quick hands at the net. He should have applied his quick hands to the script and some of the amateurish tennis involved in this considerably disappointing film.

Its a hotchpotch of what I assume he wanted to film and what movie conventions made him film. This was an opportunity for the average film viewer to understand the personal physical and mental pressures associated with being a day in day out quality performer in an individual's game. The film abdicates any educational purpose and hails convention and even the tennis filming is not up to much.

Well keep in mind, I'm saying this as a person who likes tennis a lot, not obsessively or anything though. I saw this movie on HBO when it was fairly new, and something about it stuck with me, I have to give it that. I couldn't, until now, remember the name of it, but the content was in my head.

This movie is riddled with cliché, which is good and bad. There is a reason cliché is what it is...because it appeals to most people in some way. Being it centers around a sport, I can pardon some of that, but only some. What I think makes the movie a little seductive, and thus why I remembered it, are the few things that are hard to ruin... There are themes like a struggle against odds, as well as not judging a book by its cover. The coach has a bad reputation in the movie, and throughout, you see the good parts of him, and that makes you reconsider judgment in general to a point...if you look into that sort of thing.

Aside from that, this movie could have used some sort of twist...any sort, really, to make it a little interesting as well. If you are into tennis at all, you might find yourself in the mood to watch it now and then. Otherwise, you may be searching for something to keep it from being ordinary.

I am Cuz, the author of the first comment. Haven't been on here for a while, changed computers, providers and all that. Anyway, I wanted to correct one detail I had wrong. Tennis officials do indeed call "fault" when a serve is missed. However, they also call "fault" on the second serve and not "double fault" as they do in this movie. I guess the writers didn't figure it mattered to the non-tennis- playing audience and maybe the "double fault" was added to make it more dramatic, and to make the umpire appear even more biased. The action isn't bad overall. Wimbledon may have tried hard to create realistic game scenes but they didn't really improve on The Break. Paul Bettany often looks like he's playing squash or trying to swat flies.