What’s at the Movies

By Ian Pugh

Hardball soft to the core

“Hardball,” the latest post-summer feel-good movie, is a frustratingly indecisive motion picture. While a little likable sparkle is visible, it is muffled under a mishmash of loose plot strands and constant mood switching. “Hardball” seems to want to take the role of as many movies as it can, but that is something that it can’t accomplish.

The film begins with a plot point that could start off any number of movie genres. Connor O’Neil (Keanu Reeves) is a compulsive gambler who owes about 12 grand to several bookies, and they’re threatening to take action unless he makes a down payment. Connor is in a fix, so he goes to a friend of his father’s to ask for help.

This is when the atmosphere changes for the first time. The friend agrees to give Connor $500 a week, but only if he coaches an inner city baseball team who are far from the cream of the crop. That’s right, folks, it’s the return of the worst-to-first baseball movie, and it’s not getting any fresher. Admittedly, the game scenes have a certain flair to them, but how many times will filmgoers have to see baseball players barely miss catches and get bonked in the head with baseballs?

Here, the movie transforms again. Two of the kids aren’t allowed to play baseball on account of their poor grades, so Connor visits their teacher, Ms. Wilkes (Diane Lane). He obviously likes her, and she likes him, but they’re both in denial. As a result, they have many awkward moments together before they realize that they are in love. We aren’t subjected to a lot of this romantic drivel, but enough to notice that it’s merely filler. So it’s about time for another change.

One of the kids gets mugged, and we enter yet another genre, the urban gang movie. This is probably the most powerful of the various changes, and it is criminally underplayed. Connor, while walking through an apartment building, asks why everyone sits on the floor. He is told, “To get below the windows—bullets.” This tension comes in again later in the movie, and it also works for a moment, but by that point, it’s too little, too late.

The hesitant tone of “Hardball”  is best illustrated by one scene: torn between his selfishness and his caring nature towards the kids, Connor walks back and forth between his car and the baseball field. This confusing, unsure action repeats several times. Moments like these, coupled with poor performances and laughable dialogue, should drive the audience far away after seeing this one.