# For Love of the Game (1999)

### reviewed by
David N. Butterworth

    FOR LOVE OF THE GAME
    A film review by David N. Butterworth
    Copyright 1999 David N. Butterworth

    ***1/2 (out of ****)

Billy Chapel is having a bad day. He's been told that the Detroit Tigers, for which he's had, until recently, a spectacular pitching career, will soon be sold. He's been told that, come season end, he'll probably be traded to the Giants anyway unless, of course, he opts to retire. And to cap it all, he's just learned that his girlfriend has taken a job overseas, and is scheduled to fly out on the next plane to London.

The forty-year-old baseball player, who holds a nineteen-year history with the Tigers, is in New York for the season finale against the Yankees when the string of bad news comes down. Standing there on the mound, "the loneliest place on earth," Billy contemplates his life through a series of flashbacks while pondering the decision to call it a day.

Every once in a while, Kevin Costner makes a baseball picture to make up for the poor decisions and lackluster performances that plague his other films. For every "Waterworld" and "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves," there's a "Bull Durham." For every "'Postman" and "'Bodyguard" there's a "Field of Dreams." With "For Love of the Game," Costner (who plays the sanguine Billy Chapel) once again proves that if you stick him in a baseball movie, they will come and come again.

Costner is very good in this film; he clearly has a passion for America's favorite pastime. Fortunately the usually flamboyant director Sam Raimi ("A Simple Plan") shows remarkable restraint in allowing that passion to shape the story, rather than his own show-offy camerawork.

Kelly Preston, whom you might remember from "Jerry Maguire," gives Billy's "blonde of the week" a delightful balance. Preston's Jane is naïve, sensitive, forthright, and demure, afraid of committing to someone of Billy's stature while at the same time unable to resist his considerable charms. She's "never had a love story," according to her teenage daughter Heather, who's nicely played by a well-cast Jena Malone ("Stepmom"). Costner and Preston's relationship evolves naturally, from the time he first spots her with her broken-down car on the freeway, to when they fall into each other's arms at the airport. It's a familiar story but here it's played out with sophistication and real human depth.

Although "For Love of the Game" is essentially a love story with a baseball setting, such is the dramatic energy of the narrative that when Billy finds himself in the middle of pitching a perfect game, the clichés dissolve into poignancy and you find yourself caught up in the excitement. The moment when Billy throws his final pitch is palpable, and that's as much a tribute to the actor as to the writer and director.

The writing by Dana Stevens, based on Michael Shaara's novel, is always intelligent, powerful and absorbing, and Basil Poledouris provides a lovely and effective score that never once gets in the way of the principals. On the baseball diamond, the film has that poetic quality shared by all the great baseball movies--"Bang the Drum Slowly," "The Natural," "Eight Men Out" ... as well as those two previously-mentioned Costner vehicles.

Do not, however, dismiss "For Love of the Game" as "just another Kevin Costner baseball movie" because as Kevin Costner movies go, baseball or otherwise, it's one of his best.

    --
    David N. Butterworth
    dnb@dca.net

Got beef? Visit "La Movie Boeuf" online at http://members.dca.net/dnb

The review above was posted to the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due to ASCII to HTML conversion.

Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews