Le gang des champions

Scotty Smalls is the new kid in the idyllic small town with his mom and stepdad. He's an awkward kid who wants to play baseball with neighborhood kids. There were 8 of them, and he hoped to be the ninth. Their best player Benny Rodriquez takes Smalls under his wing. Over the summer, the group has great childhood adventures together. It all culminates to a story of a lost baseball signed by Babe Ruth and a feared dog named the Beast.

This is more than just a kids movie. You can easily overdose on the innocence of it all. There is the group of kids. They are perfectly casted with amazing chemistry. Each one is an iconic child type. As a period piece, they picked an era just before the world goes into revulsion. In the sport of baseball, they have accentuated the childhood love of the game.

This is a kids movie for the whole family. That's not a cliché. It has the feel of a timeless classic.

Tommy Smalls (Tom Guiry) is the new kid, who moved with his mother (Karen Allen) and his stepfather (Denis Leary) is a suburbans area of Salt Lake City in the summertime. When Smalls becomes curious with a group of kids (Mike Vitar, Patrick Renna, Chauncey Leopardi, Marty York, Brandon Quintin Adams, Grant Gelt, Shane Obedzinski and Victor DiMattia), who plays Baseball all day long in a old baseball field. Smalls is hoping to play with them but he knows nothing about the game. When he tries to play, he's quite bad at all. He can't even throw a ball to the catchers. When he becomes friend with the leader of the game and Smalls starting to like the game. But when his stepfather goes away for business, Smalls take a baseball from his stepfather trophy room. Which without realizing that the ball, he took from the room is actually signed by the Baseball Legend "Babe Ruth". Smalls hits his first home run, the ball went over the fence of a old house. But that old house, it has an mean-spirited junkyard dog. Which the kids called him "The Beast". Now the kids have to help Smalls to get the ball back before his stepfather comes back from the business trip.

Directed by David M. Evans (First Kid) made an likable family comedy that plenty of funny moments, a good cast and a lot of imagination. The narration of the film will certainly make you remember of the late Bob Clark film "A Christmas Story", although the narration of "The Sandlot" is sightly heavy-handed at times. This film has a surprise hit, when it was release in the spring of 1993. Fox had another fantasy film about Baseball, which it was "Rookie of the Year". James Earl Jones, Art LaFleur and a young Marley Shelton have memorable bit parts in this pleasant comedy as well.

DVD has an sharp anamorphic Widescreen (2.35:1) transfer (Also in Pan & Scan) and an good Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound. DVD also includes an featurette, trailer and TV spots. This film went on to be an modest classic over the year. All the kids have their moments, especially Renna and Leopardi have their comedic moments. The movie slows down a bit during the second act. But it's well made and this picture pleases everyone as well. It's one of the better family movies of the 1990's. Don't miss it. Co-Written by the director. Arliss Howard appears Unbilled. Followed by Two Direct to DVD's. Joe-Dunton-Camera Scope (J-D-C Scope). (****/*****).

The Sandlot was my favorite kid movie when I was a kid myself.

I was about 8 when I saw it the first time on German TV, so a couple o' years after the movie's release and man, I loved this one. I saw it during summer and after watching it I felt the energy for new adventures! The best thing is, years after that I saw the movie again during another summer and it reminded me so hard on the good times one can have as a youngster outside... I went for adventures again.

As many other reviewers have noticed, this movie reminds us of what it was like to be a kid, and when dogs were dangerous monsters, and playing outside was just a huge adventure. Everybody of us felt like an Indiana Jones. It felt damn good.

This is one of the movies I will carefully hold on and keep it, lets say to watch it all couple of 6 years just to remind me how cool life can be. The movie captures all our youth so well and packs it in one huge summer so watch and love this one.

An absolute 10/10 for being THE kid movie of my life and guess what? I am an adult but I love watching this one. Your turn now.

This is a truly amazing film. It's a very good family film that can be enjoyed by BOTH your kids and yourself! That's rare, as often "family films" have too much smutty language or sexual situations for kids OR are so saccharine sweet that sane adults would prefer suicide over watching the films (think Disney in the 1960s).

The film isn't quite a comedy, though there are really funny moments in it (such as the evil dog that eats baseballs). And, it's not exactly a drama. It's more like an occasionally surreal slice of life film about the good old days of the late 50s-early 60s. It's about a group of kids that live to play baseball--and that's all they ever seem to want to do! Despite this very simple plot, somehow the excellent acting, direction and writing make you really care about the kids and it engages you from start to finish.

My husband watched it for the first time a few days ago (over the long Veterans Day weekend). He then watched it for a second time the day after. He did not have a happy childhood, in fact some childhood memories for him are downright painful. We have been married 11 years and I know very little about his childhood and what went on. However, after (and during the second viewing), he began a waterfall of childhood memories that I had never heard before. Of long summers of "sandlot" games with him and his cousins (they were known as "the cousins") they could play baseball and football and kicked the butt of most of the teams in town, during the movie his memories spewed forth as if they had been bottled up and just needed to be set free. His friend actually did the "lifeguard" thing, pretended to drown to kiss her, and like the movie they were all banned from the pool. They also had a "scary guy" in the old house that everyone was terrified of (in fact so did I as I recall). He assures me that this movie is as faithful a retelling of a childhood in the 60s as he has ever seen, and he revels in it. I think that is the greatest compliment that anyone can ever pay a movie and I am grateful to the director for uncorking the well of my husbands memories for me to share.