Look. Between Youngblood and The Replacements, one's expectations of the latest Keanu Reeves sports movie can't be all that high. Given that it falls under the same category as little league pictures such as Rookie of the Year, Little Giants, the Mighty Ducks, and the Bad News Bears, you'd probably have to be bound and gagged to a chair to sit through Hardball, right? Wrong.
This is a fun baseball movie with great laughs, unexpectedly warm moments, and even some tension. Don't get me wrong, it probably won't make any waves critically, but it is a lot less painful than you might think. Its heart is definitely in the right place.
It's about an unemployed gambler named Conor O'Neill (Reeves), who agrees to coach an inner-city little league team to pay off a $12,000 debt to a bookie. Initially, his motives are financial. Gradually, O'Neill warms to the team and vice versa. The kids, understandably, use baseball to escape their fears of driveby shootings, gangs, and crime. The gang undercurrent adds a lot more grit to the movie; the boys aren't worried about a bully in their class, or getting a girlfriend to notice them. They just want to have some fun in their daily lives, and an adult male role model to cling to. One special scene has the team going to see a Cubs game for the very first time. When they get the chance to actually wave to Sammy Sosa, it's surprisingly poignant.
Naturally, their goal is to go to the championship (here referred to as "the Ship"), but this is more of a backdrop to the rest of the subplots. These include: an older and younger brother; a schoolteacher who is concerned about the boys' grades (played by Diane Lane); an overweight asthmatic boy who gets mugged; and a pitcher who loves to listen to his Walkman while he is on the mound (a specific Notorious B.I.G. song played over and over again helps him to relax).
There's an awful lot of language in Hardball, far more than I could ever have predicted. Yet, this is how kids talk today, so after a few scenes, the cuss words aren't quite so grating. It's got a great soundtrack and score, and Keanu gives the young actors breathing room to set up good scenes here and there, although it would have been nice if they could have gotten some more screen time. I wish the rival teams didn't have the stereotypical "ruthless coaches", but I guess it's a prerequisite to this genre.
I wouldn't dream of revealing whether or not the kids finally make it to "the Ship", because it's the getting there that's so much fun. Near the end, an important game is alluded to, but not shown at first. Instead, it's re-visited through a flashback. This is a much more satisfying narrative technique, and it's only one of several examples that the director Brian Robbins doesn't want to make just any generic picture about underdogs fighting the good fight. In my opinion, he hasn't. Despite some of the more familiar parts, it's got a lot of spunk, and in the end you can bet on Hardball.
