Hardball

Rating:
Summary: Not quite hard enough
Review: Keanu Reeves plays a man with gambling problems. When he loses a large bet, he is offered a chance to earn money through coaching a youth baseball team. The movie has too many storylines, and it distracts from the how good the film could really be.
While the movie is rated PG-13, mostly for its language, parents be warned that there is a scene of violence that may disturb the younger children--and the language is really pushing the limits.

Rating:
Summary: Homerun?
Review: Hmmmm well it was inspired by a true story, about Connor O'Neill who in order to get a loan from his friend has to coach a little league team in order to get it. In certain ways it seems like a baseball remake of The Mighty Ducks but with a heart-warming story line and good acting it just might get a homerun.

Rating:
Summary: Great film
Review: This is a great film, and a nice departure for Keanu from his usual role as action superheroe. While I enjoyed him in "The Matrix," we find him at his best in "Hardball." As a gambler/drunk who gets turned aroud by coaching a kid's baseball team, Reeves is surprisingly believable, and manages to show the change in his character in a non-formulamatic way. It's nice to finally see a realistic view of inner-city kids. The language is rough throughout the movie, especially on the baseball field, but that's what makes it realistic. Also, great job by the child actors on Keanu's team. They pull of the really touching moments, and you find yourself not really minding their rough language, as they are a very likeable group of boys. For adults, I highly reccomend it. However WARNING: THIS IS NOT THE BAD NEWS BEARS. It's a drama about inner-city kids, not a nice little comedy. Please don't take your very young kid to see it expecting a nice little movie. It's not a kid's movie. Older kids and adults should enjoy baseball at it's best in "Hardball."

Rating:
Summary: Hardball Is Reeves' Best Performance Yet!
Review: It seems that everywhere I look here, people are trashing the acting ability (or, as some might say, the lack thereof) of Keanu Reeves. However, I feel he gives his finest performance in "Hardball." Here, he plays Conor O'Neil, a down-on-his-luck gambler/ticket scalper who's in deep with the bookies. To get out of his debts, he takes a job coaching a rag-tag band of inner city Chicago youths in their baseball league. The plot is somewhat predictable...kids who don't trust anyone, the coach who doesn't want to be there...respect eventually earned...etc., etc. Diane Lane makes a welcome return from who-knows-where as a teacher who eventually develops a close friendship with Conor. The kids, most of whom are first-time actors, add life to the story, but it's Keanu who makes the film worth watching. Here, he shows real emotion, real change, and some nice moments of comic clumsiness that will make you laugh. I don't care what people may say about my Keanu; he made me cry at the end of the film, and I felt that his charcater truly grew and changed from the coaching experience. A very good film, but, as some have said before, NOT for young children. It does take place in the Chicago Projects, and there is violence in the film. NOT for people who get upset too easily.

Rating:
Summary: If you want LOSERS for kids, them give them this example!
Review: Yeah, that's what I said, LOSERS!! The baseball was great, the message was a piece of trash that needs to go straight to the dump! What? Did I just offend a parent? Particularly a loser who has kids that actually talk this way? Good! And shame on anyone who could let their kids follow an example such as this. Hey, I realize this is the real world, but how about the rating system getting it right next time and rating a flick like this "R"!? Kids running around using filthy language and you wonder why people say, "Well, that's the kind of world we grow up in these days. Kids will be kids." Yeah? Well, I hate to break it to you, but kids like that who have to resort to petty language like that usually don't go on to get degrees in college, let along graduate high school. Ok, here's one. How about that "Big Papa" song? Anybody happen to know what that song is about? Oh yeah, about losers, that's why Biggie is where he is today. By the way, did I offend somebody?

Rating:
Summary: HARDBALL, One of the Most Underrated Movies Ever Made
Review: Why is it that slightly-flawed Hollywood motion pictures with great directing, great writing, great performances, and one of the best original film scores ever recorded never get the credit they deserve? If this were a foreign film, the reviewers would be falling all over themselves to give it 5 stars.
The characters portrayed by Keanu Reeves and the terrific young actors in HARDBALL are only superficially developed. Although the Reeves character's gambling addiction is obvious, one does not get a full sense of his inner torment, other than his desire to quit gambling by sublimating his energies into coaching a ghetto baseball team. And although his highly suspicious black team members obviously give him a break by letting him coach them, their motivations for wanting to play baseball in the first place - rather than more culturally-correct basketball, for example - are equally unclear.
That said, however, these are the only two flaws in the film. After that, the movie goes so far beyond the Hollywood banal norm, it can only be compared to one of the greatest films of all time, PAY IT FORWARD, another vastly-underrated Hollywood film. In its own understated way, HARDBALL touches upon, with grace and humor and heart, almost every important issue facing the inner city today. Only the most jaded, novocane-brained, MATRIX-overstimulated [...]tube watcher could not like this film.
And it is all tied together with an original score that can only be compared to Gustav Mahler. If the viewer wasn't listening to or didn't like the gut-wrenching score, then obviously he or she is one of the many unfortunates today in America who grew up in a community that cut back or completely eliminated music education in the public schools.
How many films have you cried at during first viewing? I can name only three, and this is one of them. How many works of art or music were blasted by the critics - like Vincent Van Gogh's "Sunflowers" or Leonard Bernstein-Stephen Sondheim's "West Side Story" - only to go on to demand the highest price in art auction history or be deemed the greatest musical ever written? HARDBALL is another deep-sleeper.
The "gambling addiction redemption," "gang violence vs. sports alternative," and "doing what you love as opposed to what you have to do" themes are interwoven so subtly and beautifully in this film, it makes you wonder what today's critics look for in a film. Perhaps they're not doing what they love to do and feel they have to take out their frustrations on Hollywood directors, writers, actors, and composers.

Rating:
Summary: Better than the Bad News Bears
Review: The longer that you watch this movie, the better it gets.Conor O'Neill (played by Keanu Reeves) is addicted to two things - alcohol and gambling. As far as I could tell, he didn't have a day job -- instead he existed by placing bets with everyone from the barber to the bartender. In his spare time, he scalps tickets with his only buddy.

His bets go bad quickly and he ends up owing a lot of money. When he asks help from a childhood friend who works for a financial institution, he agrees to pay him $500 a week to coach a baseball team of inner-city kids.

My favorite scene is when Conor goes home with one of the kids. He asks why everyone is sitting down. The kid responds that it's too avoid the bullets. When asked what he does for fun, he responds, "Play baseball with you."

After that, Conor is a changed man and the movie keeps getting better. I've never been to the inner-city but I believe that this movie does a good job of showing us what it is like to grow up in that environment.

Rating:
Summary: Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go To The Video Store
Review: All self respecting humans and film geeks run for cover. This movie is like going through the worst kind of surgery in the most god awful places.