• Rightly praised for its colorful screenplay by Shelton (who spent 5 years in the minors himself) and for the strong 3 leads (Costner, Sarandon, and Robbins) who would become major stars for the next decade—all three leads are superb but I think Sarandon largely makes the film work- she’s amazing with accent- her “patronizing”
  • It’s not great direction from Shelton—there are 2 montages in the first 5 minutes- the black and white photos of all-time baseball greats over the opening titles is great but the ball park “rock around the clock” is uninspired and, to make matters worse, repeated as a third montage in the opening 10 minutes with bad/wild pitches from Robbins
  • The “I’m too old for this shit” line by Costner seems directly pilfered from danny glover in lethal weapon the year before
  • There’s some speech-making in the screenplay that gets a little tired
  • So the film starts with sarandon’s voice over and then goes into costner’s head for that well-known strikeout sequences—it’s a good scene but really bad form
  • Again, the film is funny, well-acted and has character- but plenty of filler montages and costner’s character speaking in platitudes ]
  • In the archives but not in the top 10 of 1988
  • Recommend