For Love of the Game (1999)

 
Suffering from storm stress?  Floyd the Barber have your hair on 
end?  Take a chill pill with yet another mind-numbing Kevin Costner 
flick. FOR LOVE OF THE GAME is a warm, fuzzy, funny, sunny, loving-
ly shot, largely upbeat, star-powered, pop song-soaked, seemingly 
authentic, baseball-based romantic drama about an aging, ailing-
armed, about-to-be-traded Major League pitcher (Costner) and his 
long-time, long-distance, and presumably long-suffering girlfriend 
(Kelly Preston, looking more like his daughter).  She's just ended 
the relationship and is about to board a plane for London; he's 
just starting the last game of the last season at Yankee Stadium.  
And so, for the next nine innings, we trace their torrid, tumult-
uous history-- via flashback, of course-- all the while wondering 
if she's really gonna get on the plane or he's gonna step off the 
pitcher's mound and say "screw this, somebody call me a cab!"  As 
I'm neither a Kevin fan nor an aficionado of America's Favorite 
Pastime, my eyes glazed over after about an hour.  The audience ate 
it up, though, cheering and/or crying in the appropriate places.  
(And at 135 minutes, we're talkin' a *lot* of schmaltz!)  Eh, it'll 
probably make millions.  And, oddly enough, it's also the second 
movie in a glove-full of days, after STIR OF ECHOES, to feature a 
cover of the Rolling Stones' "Paint it Black."  I wish I'd walked 
out that red door...  Former horrormeister-turned-legit-filmmaker 
Sam Raimi (A SIMPLE PLAN) directs.  (Rated "PG-13"/135 min.)

Grade: B   

Copyright 1999 Michael J. Legeros
Movie Hell is a trademark of Michael J. Legeros  

Originally posted to triangle.movies as MOVIE HELL: September 19, 1999

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