A sticky wicket is overcome in pleasant, predictable style
Like death and taxes, heartwarming sports films have a certain built-in dependability.
There are differences, of course, between, say, The Natural and Seabiscuit. But the films also share salient features, such as dewy-eyed views of their sports and a heavy dose of characters triumphing over steep odds.
The new Million Dollar Arm is based on the true story of sports agent J.B. Bernstein (Jon Hamm), whose flagging career inspires him to make an expedition to India, where he hopes to find cricket players with baseball-pitcher potential.
We know that Bernstein’s quixotic search will look hopeless before he finds athletes with the right stuff. We can also be confident that the filmmakers will linger on emeraldcolored baseball fields and find room for a few odes to the game’s beauty and fun.
With such a film, pleasure is derived from comforting predictability.
Hamm gives a Willy Lomanlike flavor to his character’s desperate salesmanship as he rehearses a pitch for a football player on his business partner (Aasif Mandvi). When the prospective client, a linebacker (Cincinnati Bengals player Rey Maualuga), arrives, Bernstein loses the deal; he can’t promise a $1 million signing bonus from the team.
In debt and desperate, Bernstein is watching television when he is struck by the juxtaposition of Susan Boyle singing I Dreamed a Dream on Britain’s Got Talent and a strong-armed cricket player on another channel. Million Dollar Arm. Craig Gillespie.
(out of four)
PG (for mild language, suggestive content) 2:04 at the Arena Grand, Crosswoods, Dublin Village 18, Easton 30, Georgesville Square 16, Grove City 14, Lennox 24, Movies 16 Gahanna, Movies 10 at Westpointe, Movie Tavern Mill Run, Pickerington, Polaris 18 and River Valley theaters
Directed by He resolves to put together a contest to find major league talent in India.
Director Craig Gillespie ( Lars and the Real Girl) nicely captures the country’s teeming, traffic-choked atmosphere and its unconventional business practices. When T-shirts and baseball equipment are delayed or stuck in customs, Bernstein learns the euphemism for offering a bribe: “bypassing the system.”
The film zeroes in on Dinesh (Madhur Mittal) and Rinku (Suraj Sharma), two athletes who possess great skills. There is authentic suspense in watching them try to pass muster with Bernstein. Rinku is referred to as “the flamingo” for the peculiar stance he takes on the mound.
Accompanied by Bernstein, Dinesh and Rinku head stateside to seek spots on rosters. The culture clash is overdone, with the two perplexed by elevator doors, windshield wipers and — most implausible— a pizza-delivery man.
Mittal and Sharma are both excellent. The fine supporting cast features Lake Bell as Brenda, a young American who provides the two Indians with moral support. A nicely to-thepoint Bill Paxton plays a levelheaded trainer who coaches the prospects. But, as a perpetually drowsy scout, Alan Arkin is given one note to play, and he overplays it.
The film careens pleasurably to its foreseeable conclusion, and its devotion to its sport is appealing. When Brenda tears up at The Pride of the Yankees, Bernstein confesses, “I cried the first 35 times I watched it.”