• Rightly praised for its colorful screenplay by Ron Shelton (who spent five years in the minors himself) and for the strong three 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