For Love of the Game

Kevin Costner is in a slump. Three of his last four films (Waterworld, The Postman, Message In A Bottle) have been lame efforts. The much ballyhooed For Love of the Game keeps the streak intact.

Part of the problem with the movie is its lack of focus. One-fifth of it is about baseball, a genre in which Costner has enjoyed previous successes with Bull Durham and Field of Dreams. But the baseball aspect is wrapped around a love story that is as tiresome and difficult to swallow as all can be.

Let’s start with the baseball story. Billy Chapel (Costner) is a 40-year-old pitcher for the Detroit Tigers. He’s destined for the Hall-of-Fame. He’s approaching what will probably be his last game on the last day of a mediocre season against the New York Yankees in Yankee Stadium.

The owner (Brian Cox), a Tom Yawkey-type, visits Billy in a hotel suite, telling his ace that he has sold the team. Would Billy entertain a trade to San Francisco? Compounding Billy’s career problems, Jane (Kelly Preston), his long-time, long-distance lover, stood him up for dinner the night before and is packed to take a job in London.

Billy starts the game, and wouldn’t you know it, he’s mowing the Yankees down. In what might be his swan song, Billy Chapel is pitching a perfect game!

Great, except that each inning is interrupted with a blow-by-blow account of the pitcher’s five-year on-again, off-again relationship with Jane. In typical Kevin Costner fashion, no details are spared, adding to the film’s excessive length. I’m surprised that he didn’t go all the way back to Abner Doubleday.

The fact that we get to follow two attractive people (Costner and Preston) doesn’t sway me in the least. The love story is implausible and a grand distraction. This is You’ve Got Mail on the pitcher’s mound.

But it’s the baseball game that really loses me. Baseball is a team game, yet the only player on the team who Billy interacts with is his catcher, Gus Sinski (John C. Reilly), who has the face of a blocked punt. The other players out on the field might as well have been standing there naked, for they are ignored for the most part. Self-absorbed Billy spends most of the game staring at the clouds, talking to himself while filtering out the crowd.

Much has been written about the film’s technical accuracy of the baseball parts. I beg to differ, catching numerous glitches. For instance, one aerial shot of Yankee Stadium in the fifth inning shows a mostly empty upper deck. Yet in the ninth inning, when each pitch seems like an eternity, the stadium is packed full. Do you mean to tell me that 10,000 upper deck fans all went to the concession stands and restrooms at the same time?

The verdict on For Love of the Game: Kevin Costner serves up another gopher ball. Will you get your money’s worth? No runs, no hits, lots of errors, and a romance that meanders aimlessly. This movie isn’t worth the price of a broken bat.