Hardball

Review by By Clint Morris

Keanu Reeves is up to bat. He's got a bit of extra baggage since we last saw him (Sweet November, The Watcher, The Replacements) but yet still has the potential to turn the minutest swing into a home run (The Matrix).

Perceptibly having read Emilio Estevez's biography on how to make a comeback via kiddie flicks - Reeves rides a curve ball into Mighty Ducks territory with the analogous, but less enjoyable baseball charade, Hardball.

Well-padded but conventional, Hardball is based on Daniel Coyle's book about coaching kids from Chicago's Cabrini-Green housing project, with Reeves the new coach sentenced to do time with a band of African American housing project kids in the film version.

Instead of bailing him out of debt with a large cheque, Connor O'Neil's friend Jimmy Fleming (Mike McGlone) makes O'Neill an offer he can't refuse. In return for $500 a week, he's offered the job of coaching Fleming's company-sponsored baseball youth team .The young souls making up the team aren't the most accommodating though, and Reeves angst is as clear as the trouble in some of these children's homes.

Needless to say, he gets a new perspective on life, and they get a new savior to some of their problems, whilst at the same time becoming one of the most improved baseball teams in the league.

What worked for Estevez; does not work For Reeves. Although he's quite suitable in the role of the distressed but indomitable Connor O'Neil, Reeves is stuck in the pages of a droning script. Partial to blame is a sub-plot involving a local schoolteacher (Diane Lane) who takes a liking to O'Neil. Maybe it's the fact that Ms Lane is considerably older than Reeves, but there's no sparks anywhere within the environs. Not as far as the audience can evidence anyway.

And while some of the movie passes for an edgier Bad News Bears, there's not a lot to say when the highlight of a movie is a young tyke singing along to a notorious B.I.G song. Wait for the Matrix sequel.

2.5 out of 5

Hardball
Australian release: Thursday 13th June
Cast: Stars Keanu Reeves, Diane Lane, D.B Sweeney, Trevor Morgan, John Hawkes.
Director: Brian Robbins.
Website: Click here

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