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If you are expecting a 2000’s version of the Bad News Bears, you won’t find it in Keanu Reeves (Sweet November, The Watcher) new film Hardball. This film offers plenty of comedy but there is much more to this script than a misfit bunch of little leaguers trying to get it together. This is a well-written emotional roller coaster of a film that draws on the strength of children and what they can teach the adults, not visa versa. The tag line from the trailers is the most important thing in life is showing up and this proves to be an important life lesson for Reeves character Conor O’Neill. In fact Hardball is not really about a bunch of inner city project kids from Chicago but about O’Neill and the direction he is heading. He is a chain smoking heavily in debt gambler that scalps tickets for a living. He owes his bar bookie over five grand, he owes the Barber over six grand and to offset those loses hits up an even bigger bookie for a score of double his debt. This particular life choice is unsettling and nerve wrecking. Why anyone would choose to have to run from thugs that want to break you thumbs because you own money or be in a position that you think you must put your hand through a car window and your head through plate glass because that would be less of an injury than what bookies would do to you, what a life. This film starts out with Reeves losing the six grand after owing the bookie whom owns the bar he is in five. He puts his hand through a car window and smashes his head through the bar window to avoid being beat up by the bookie. After his friend Ticky (John Hawkes, I Still Know) posts his bail, the Barber’s thugs show up at Reeves piece of crap apartment to collect and when they only get $47.00 they put a bat through the wall. Now Reeves has to pay $750.00 a week until they say stop. Reeves hits up his friend who is a trader at this prestigious security company. He just borrowed $5 grand a few months ago under the pretense of burying his father. The friend offers him $500.00 a week to help him coach this little league team his firm is sponsoring. Reeves takes it but finds out his friend is not going to help, he will just give him the check every Monday. These kids look like a bunch of bad news bears, but all they really needed was some organization and someone to trust. What they give back is far more than what they received from O’Neill. The team consists of Jefferson Tibbs (Julian Griffith) the fat boy with asthma that give it his all. Jamal (Michael B. Jordan) a gifted player that is bumped from the team because another coach proves he was not old enough by two weeks. Miles (Alan Ellis Jr.) a pitcher that listens to the same rap song in his headset over and over again. Kofi (Michael Perkins) a quiet intelligent gifted player and his younger brother G- Baby or Gerrias (DeWayne Warren) a darling nine year old too young to play but showed up to every practice and game and Andre (Bryan Hearne) a bright player with a white sweat band. Finally, there is the attractive, do-gooding teacher Elizabeth Wilkes (Diane Lane, The Perfect Storm) that coach Reeves gains an interest in. The director of Hardball is Brian Robbins. He takes a new look into what a child goes through living in the inner city projects and how easy one misstep can change your whole life. Reeves character gets to see through the eyes of these kids and how hard they have to work at just living and how they show up each and every time. I give Hardball a nine on the About-Movies.com scale. Bye.
Last updated: Thursday, March 20, 2008 02:49:12 AM Click Here to get back into frames.
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