Eight Men Out

Rating:
Summary: Second only to The Natural as the best baseball film ever.
Review: A great film with great actors. One of John Cusack's best roles (that's saying something) and one of Charlie Sheen's best roles as well. (maybe not as impressive). If you love baseball, history, or are just appreciate good story telling, watch this movie. Leaves all other baseball movies in the dust, with the exception of The Natural...and even that's a close call.

Rating:
Summary: I'm not even a baseball fan, but I liked this film!
Review: A really interesting sports drama regarding the infamous White Sox scandal surrounding the 1908 World Series. While I didn't think I could ever sympathize with these guys, I ended up wondering WHY the people of Chicago ever named a stadium after that bum Comiskey?!! According to this film, he really doesn't deserve it!

Rating:
Summary: First Rate Baseball Cassic
Review: All I want to know is where is the DVD for this movie? Probably the best and underrated of all the baseball films, this is a movie which truly details the ugly side of professional sports. It pays homage to America's pastime, but also tells a story of broken hearts and shattered dreams. I WANT THE DVD FOR THIS, MGM! Get it together!

Rating:
Summary: Great cast, but a bit uninvolving
Review: EIGHT MEN OUT chronicles the 1919 scandal involving the World Series being thrown by the Chicago White Sox (the team would subsequently be snidely nicknamed the Black Sox by disgruntled baseball fans). The movie takes its time spinning the story and accords quite a bit of time to making the case for why the White Sox players would engage in this behavior. Making the players more sympathetic is a smart move, although of perhaps questionable accuracy.

First, the pluses....The movie looks terrific and director Sayles obviously put a great deal of effort into recreating the time period. The story is also inherently interesting, even to this non-fan of baseball. The acting is uniformly good, and many of the actors went on to great careers, particularly John Cusak. Charlie Sheen also puts in one of his best performances. Some of the actors were regulars in Sayles' films, including David Strathairn.

Unfortunately, the movie was not particularly emotionally involving. The story is told primarily from the point-of-view of the baseball players. The public reaction is largely left out of the film, except for the famous scene where a young boy pleads to Joe Jackson, "Say it ain't so Joe." Including more of these types of scenes may have made the film more emotional. Of course, Sayles tends to be a rather unsentimental director, so his approach is not surprising. Overall, a very good film that could have been better.

Rating:
Summary: Great historical account of Black Sox Scandal
Review: Eight Men Out is a fantastic historical film. The viewer feels for the players being cheated by their owner, and you can understand their motivations for taking the money. Great acting by John Cusack as Buck Weaver. Not as good as Field of Dreams, but certainly worth a try.

Rating:
Summary: A Baseball Must
Review: Eight Men Out is a must-see for any baseball fan. I'd always known about Shoeless Joe and about the conspiracy to throw the 1919 world series, but I never knew much more about the other players involved. Although this is a movie, it gives you a different look into what happened than the history books. John Cusack does a fine job as Buck Weaver, and the rest of the cast works well together. If you're a fan of baseball, or just a fan of baseball movies, you've gotta see this movie. You won't regret it. I'd give it 5 stars, but I don't give out 5 stars.

Rating:
Summary: More Than a Baseball Movie
Review: Eight Men Out is the story of the 1919 Chicago "Black Sox". This is the team that threw what was supposed to be an easy World Series victory. The movie gives what is very close to the real events as they transpired while the scandal unfolded with arguably a tilted view in favor of the players. Some of these guys actually did try to lose while others backed out of the deal at the last minute.

It is unlike other sports movies in that the play on the field is central to the story but isn't the story itself. The real story of this movie is the conditions under which these guys performed in the early part of this century compared to the pampered existence of today's athletes. It was these conditions that made them a little more willing to go along with this scheme.

We also get a good look at the machinations involving Kennesaw Mountain Landis, the first baseball commissioner, that conspired to ban these men from baseball permanently to restore America's faith in the game. They were banned even though not one of the players was ever convicted of a crime involving illegal betting. (much in the same way that Pete Rose has been excommunicated from the game just recently)

Eight Men Out has what I believe to be the most emotionally compelling scene of any movie ever made. It's in the final minutes of the movie when Buck Weaver is watching a semi-pro game that Shoeless Joe is playing in. I won't spell it out completely but it is what good movie making is all about.

This movie is really helped by having an excellent cast. All the parts are well acted, especially that of Buck Weaver by John Cusack. I would recommend Eight Men Out not just to the baseball fan, but to anyone who can appreciate a good movie.

Rating:
Summary: The tragic story of Buck Weaver and the Black Sox scandal
Review: Every time I watch "Eight Men Out" I am not really sure how I stand on the question of whether or not "Shoeless" Joe Jackson should be in the Hall of Fame, but the film certainly reaffirms my long held belief that justice might best be served if Charlie Comisky was kicked out of the shrine of baseball immortals. It is useful to remember that the team was already known as the Black Sox before the 1919 World Series because they refused to pay for their own laundry when Comisky decided there were additional nickels to be made from cutting that particular corner. What Comisky did to create an environment on his team that gamblers were able to exploit is amply set up. Even before the gamblers double-cross the boys and have to take extra steps to ensure the outcome of the series against the Reds, it is Comisky's arrogant dictatorship that makes us look with some measure of sympathy towards the Black Sox. Director John Sayles, who takes a turn as sportswriter Ring Lardner singing "I'm Forever Throwing Ball Games" on the train carrying the team, this 1988 film certainly gets the most out of its limited budget. Based on Eliot Asniof's book, which is a very detailed account of the entire scandal, the film focuses on the eight men who, for various reasons, ended up throwing away their reputations and their careers. The details on the scandal are in the book; Sayle's film focuses on the basic elements are the moral ambiguities of a complex chain of human actions.

Certainly the tragic figure in "Eight Men Out" is not Jackson (D.B. Sweeney), who certainly receives his biggest cinematic boost from "Field of Dreams," but rather Buck Weaver (John Cusack). Weaver's sin was that he failed to rat out his teammates once he knew there was talk of a fix. Judge Kenisaw Mountain Landis, a necessary evil as the game's first commissioner, needed to scrap out the cancer of this scandal even if it meant cutting to the bone. That meant that Weaver, who was the third baseman on Ty Cobb's all-time team, suffers the same banishment for life from the game he loves as those who took payments to throw the World Series. Weaver's nobility is further enhanced in the film because he is the one who has time for the kids in the sandlot and who believes that the lessons he learned as a boy playing the game still apply not only to baseball but also to life. Jackson is something of a cipher in the film, more legend than flesh and blood human being. Consequently, Weaver's character stands in contrast to Chick Gandil (Michael Rooker), the limited "brains" behind the scandal and Eddie Cicotte (David Strathairn), the star most wronged by Comisky the skinflint. Even at the end of the film, when we see "Shoeless" Joe on a semi-pro field playing under an assumed name, it is Weaver who offers the film's benediction from the stands and Weaver who emerges as the most sympathetic figure. If you get to vote for anyone to be in the Hall of Fame from the Black Sox, Bucky would be your man. But neither Weaver nor Jackson is in Cooperstown and there is a second ballpark on the Southside of Chicago named for the true villain of the story.

Rating:
Summary: The tragic story of Buck Weaver and the Black Sox scandal
Review: Every time I watch "Eight Men Out" I am not really sure how I stand on the question of whether or not "Shoeless" Joe Jackson should be in the Hall of Fame, but the film certainly reaffirms my long held belief that justice might best be served if Charlie Comisky was kicked out of the shrine of baseball immortals. It is useful to remember that the team was already known as the Black Sox before the 1919 World Series because they refused to pay for their own laundry when Comisky decided there were additional nickels to be made from cutting that particular corner. What Comisky did to create an environment on his team that gamblers were able to exploit is amply set up. Even before the gamblers double-cross the boys and have to take extra steps to ensure the outcome of the series against the Reds, it is Comisky's arrogant dictatorship that makes us look with some measure of sympathy towards the Black Sox. Director John Sayles, who takes a turn as sportswriter Ring Lardner singing "I'm Forever Throwing Ball Games" on the train carrying the team, this 1988 film certainly gets the most out of its limited budget. Based on Eliot Asniof's book, which is a very detailed account of the entire scandal, the film focuses on the eight men who, for various reasons, ended up throwing away their reputations and their careers. The details on the scandal are in the book; Sayle's film focuses on the basic elements are the moral ambiguities of a complex chain of human actions.

Certainly the tragic figure in "Eight Men Out" is not Jackson (D.B. Sweeney), who certainly receives his biggest cinematic boost from "Field of Dreams," but rather Buck Weaver (John Cusack). Weaver's sin was that he failed to rat out his teammates once he knew there was talk of a fix. Judge Kenisaw Mountain Landis, a necessary evil as the game's first commissioner, needed to scrap out the cancer of this scandal even if it meant cutting to the bone. That meant that Weaver, who was the third baseman on Ty Cobb's all-time team, suffers the same banishment for life from the game he loves as those who took payments to throw the World Series. Weaver's nobility is further enhanced in the film because he is the one who has time for the kids in the sandlot and who believes that the lessons he learned as a boy playing the game still apply not only to baseball but also to life. Jackson is something of a cipher in the film, more legend than flesh and blood human being. Consequently, Weaver's character stands in contrast to Chick Gandil (Michael Rooker), the limited "brains" behind the scandal and Eddie Cicotte (David Strathairn), the star most wronged by Comisky the skinflint. Even at the end of the film, when we see "Shoeless" Joe on a semi-pro field playing under an assumed name, it is Weaver who offers the film's benediction from the stands and Weaver who emerges as the most sympathetic figure. If you get to vote for anyone to be in the Hall of Fame from the Black Sox, Bucky would be your man. But neither Weaver nor Jackson is in Cooperstown and there is a second ballpark on the Southside of Chicago named for the true villain of the story.

Rating:
Summary: No Other Baseball Film Compares
Review: Excellent movie about the tragic story of the 1919 Chicago Black Sox. Much better than the overrated Field of Dreams. Unlike Field of Dreams, this film depicts Shoeless Joe as he really was -- illiterate, ignorant, and estranged. Of course, John Cusack is superb as Buck Weaver, who is the central tragic figure in this film. Great historical picture.