Disappointing
Game
Costner Movie Doesn't Click, Reynolds Says
For
Love of the Game
Starring: Kevin Costner, Kelly Preston
Directed by: Sam Raimi
Universal Studios
137 minutes
Grade: C+ (Game stuff: B+. Love story: C)
NEW YORK (AQB)--The fantastical elements of Field of Dreams meet the sudsiness of Message in a Bottle in Kevin Costner's latest baseball romance, For Love of the Game.
Universal Pictures is targeting the Costner/Kelly Preston angle at young women and the baseball stuff at men, but this 22-year-old woman would have been much happier spending more time with the better-drawn story of an aging player, the ball and the diamond. Director Sam Raimi also seems more comfortable in the sports milieu, showing visual flair and a good eye for detail.
"The cathedral at Yankee Stadium belongs to a Chapel" - Billy Chapel (Costner), that is, a starting pitcher for 19 years for the Detroit Tigers, who are playing against the Bronx Bombers on the next-to-last day of the season. Chapel's arm is tired, and the Tigers owner has just sold the team to new management, who want to trade the player to the San Francisco Giants. And just in case the pitcher's day wasn't bad enough, former girlfriend Jane Aubrey (Preston) has announced that she's leaving permanently for London in a few hours.
As Chapel takes to the mound at Yankee Stadium, contemplating whether to retire, he reflects on his life in and out of baseball. At this point, the movie begins to use the flashback/flashforward structure, with an emphasis on the flashing back. This is where many of the film's problems lie.
The game sequences are fairly interesting, even though Costner's talking to the batters gets a bit hokey. Raimi effectively shows the tunnel sensation pitchers say they experience when they block out the noise around them and focus solely on the area 60 feet, 6 inches, in front of them. The figures in the background become a muffled blur, with only Chapel, catcher Gus Sinski (John C. Reilly) and a Yankee visible.
Seeing the game through the Fox television camera is an unusual touch, but it works. Real-life broadcasters Vin Scully and Steve Lyons help to create this feeling. The lighting also deserves commendation, with just the right amount of shadow casting the field on a late-afternoon game in early fall. Only the ballplayers' numbers don't fit. The game is baseball, not football: Even on the Yankees, the majority of the players' numbers begin with something lower than a 6 or 7.
For Love of the Game also contains a traditional love story, that of ballplayer Billy and fashion writer Jane. Increasingly lengthy flashbacks show the evolution and dissolution of their five-year relationship. Costner and Preston just don't have that much chemistry; their making out in an elevator looks more uncomfortable than passionate. Preston's goofy facial expressions become distracting and irritating as the relationship progresses. This is problematic, as Dana Stevens' script doesn't supply much dialogue for these scenes; instead, Basil Poledouris' overbearing music adds further sap.
Will Costner ever find another romantic pairing as electric as that with Susan Sarandon in Bull Durham? He's not providing any help here. It always seems as if Jane bears more of herself than Billy does, and we never get the sense that he needs her, too. Also, Jane doesn't mention her daughter (Jena Malone) until almost a year into her relationship with Costner - incomprehensible even for a casual affair. Malone, in her few but impressive scenes, has more presence with Costner and Preston than the two have with each other.
When
For Love of the Game returns for good to the present game, it unfortunately
falls into the slow-motion/swelling music stereotype, and the last 15
minutes lack punch. In the end, the film suffers from the same ailments
that have plagued many of Costner's more recent works: reverence that
drifts into extreme solemnity and an inability to know when to quit. My
own love affair with the movie was never as intense as it should've been.
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