Hardball
by Brian Robbins
List Price:
Our Price: $5.99
You Save: $3.00 (33%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $1.47 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD releases
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD Cover Information
Actor: Bryan Hearne, Diane Lane, John Hawkes, Julian Griffith, Keanu ReevesDirector: Brian Robbins
Brand: Team Marketing
Producer: Brian Robbins
Producer: Erwin Stoff
Producer: Herb Gains
Producer: Kevin McCormick
Producer: Michael Tollin
Writer: Daniel Coyle
Writer: John Gatins
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); English (Original Language); French (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 106 minutes
Published: 2001
DVD Release Date: 2002-02-19
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Paramount
Movie Reviews of Hardball
Movie Review: Yet Another MUCH Better Film Than The Critics Said
Summary: 5 Stars
Why is it that a slightly-flawed Hollywood motion picture with great directing, great writing, great performances, and one of the best original film scores ever recorded never gets the credit it deserves? If this were a foreign film, the reviewers would be falling all over themselves to give it 5 stars.
Some professional reviewers overly dwelled upon the unexplained extraordinary talent of the young athletes in HARDBALL's story. I think that director Brian Robbins understated that on purpose. Not only is this over-sentimentalized in most sports movies about kids, but, more importantly, the often untapped talent in the impoverished inner city should already stagger the imagination if one just looks at adult black and Latino athletes in almost any sport and really thinks about how most of them "got to where they got." The answer is not just "they rose above dire circumstances" but more obvious, although still left unspoken by most Caucasians (and I am one of them), even on the Sports pages: The awesome and pervasive African-American and Hispanic talent in most team and many other sports today (like boxing, track, and dare I mention golf?) is genetic and had to rise to the top from somewhere. Enough unsaid, so why should Robbins bother to explain it?
However, the characters portrayed by Keanu Reeves and the terrific young actors in HARDBALL are only superficially developed. Although the Reeves character's gambling addiction is apparent, one does not get a full sense of his inner torment, other than his eventual desire to quit gambling by sublimating his energies into coaching a ghetto baseball team. And although his highly suspicious black team members obviously give him a break by letting him coach them, their motivations for wanting to play baseball in the first place - rather than more culturally-correct basketball, for example - are equally unclear.
That said, these are the only two flaws in the film. After that, the movie goes so far beyond the Hollywood banal norm, it can only be compared in deepness to one of the greatest films of all time, PAY IT FORWARD, another greatly-underrated Hollywood film. In its own understated way, HARDBALL touches upon, with grace and humor and heart, almost every important issue facing the inner city today. Only the most jaded, novocane-brained, MATRIX-overstimulated [...]tube watcher could not like this film.
And it is all tied together with an original score that can only be compared to Gustav Mahler. If the viewer wasn't listening to or didn't like Mark Isham's gut-wrenching score, then obviously he or she is one of the many unfortunates today in America who grew up in a community that cut back or completely eliminated music education in the public schools, an issue no longer limited to the inner city - try the so-called "rich" American suburbs as well.
How many films have you cried at during first viewing? I can name only three, and this is one of them. How many works of art or music were blasted by the critics - like Vincent Van Gogh's "Sunflowers" or Leonard Bernstein-Stephen Sondheim's "West Side Story" - only to go on to demand the highest price in art auction history or be deemed the greatest musical ever written? HARDBALL is another deep-sleeper.
The "gambling addiction redemption," "gang violence vs. sports alternative," and "doing what you love as opposed to what you have to do" themes are interwoven so subtly and beautifully in this movie, it makes you wonder what today's critics look for in a film. Perhaps they're not doing what they love to do and feel they have to take out their frustrations on Hollywood directors, writers, actors, and composers.
Summary of Hardball
An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.Similar DVD Movies
Freedom Writers (Widescreen Edition)Freedom; Release date: 2007-04-17; Published: 2007-04-01; DVD
Best price: $4.13
Price in other shops:
Blue Streak (Special Edition)SONY PICTURES HOME ENT; Release date: 2000-02-08; DVD
Best price: $4.26
Price in other shops:
Remember the Titans (Widescreen Edition)Walt Disney Video; Release date: 2001-03-20; DVD
Best price: $5.58
Price in other shops:
The Devil's Advocate (Keepcase Packaging)by Andrew Neiderman
Warner Brothers; Release date: 2009-06-30; DVD
Best price: $2.85
Price in other shops:
The GiftBLANCHETT,CATE; Release date: 2001-07-17; DVD
Best price: $2.43
Price in other shops:
The Private Lives of Pippa LeeGaiam; Release date: 2010-03-02; DVD
Best price: $1.59
Price in other shops:
Gridiron Gang (Widescreen Edition)Rock; Release date: 2007-01-16; DVD
Best price: $5.97
Price in other shops:
Street KingsTCFHE; Release date: 2008-08-19; DVD
Best price: $3.49
Price in other shops:
Coach Carter (Widescreen Edition)Coach; Release date: 2005-06-21; DVD
Best price: $4.37
Price in other shops:
The Replacements (Keepcase)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2009-11-03; DVD
Best price: $4.22
Price in other shops: