Rating: Summary: Enjoyable Review: This is a decent movie and deserves the 3 stars, but Mr. Reeves acting on the other hand deserves 1 star. His performance was the only bad thing about this movie.
Rating: Summary: Nice Surprise! Review: Actually I thought this movie was going to be a bore. It turned out to be one of those nice surprises. The movie had heart and a nice storyline to go with it. Without giving away the movie lets just say Reeves puts in a good believable performance. I would recommend this movie as a good chick flick, but also a movie a guy can enjoy...even touching on some emotions! Might be a little too much for the younger crowd say under 10 or so.
Rating: Summary: this was the best little league movie i have seen Review: this movie took me back to some great day's of little league baseball i had with my own boys. all the kids were great actor's i thank. and keanu reeves did a great job of playing there coach he learned a great deal from the boys on the team in the long run. this movie was funny at times but it was also very sad. the little boy who played g-baby really touched my heart. when they told him he was to young to play on the team and the big tears started rolling down his cheeks i also had my own tears rolling down my face.and then by the end of the movie i was bawling my eyes out when reeves made his speech toward the end of the movie. this is a great movie even if you don't like sports. get it and see for yourself.
Rating: Summary: A Great African-American Baseball Movie! Review: Might have loads of bullies but this movie is still is great and The Kekambas (the baseball team) & Keanu Reeves should be nominated for "Best On-Screen Team" of the MTV Movie Awards, it's just too bad that G-Baby passed away, with a shot in the heart, I even didn't know that Bryan Hearne starred in this movie. Why this isn't only an african-american basketball movie, it's a landmark film.
Rating: Summary: great movie Review: Hardball was excellent! I have seen it 28 times so far. It's wonderful to see Keanu playing someone who isn't violent, trying to kill somebody, or trying to get into bed with somebody for once--not that I'm complaining. I really love the scene where he has placed a $12,000 bet and thinks he's lost it. He portrayed a man so beyond stressed that he was on the threshold of suicide. I told my sisters to see this movie and I didn't give away a thing about it. Now they both want it. I fell in love with the kids. The movie makes my cry every time I see it.
Rating: Summary: Keanu Reeves flaunts his repellent "acting" skills Review: "One of the most important things in life is showing up," Conor O'Neill (Keanu Reeves) says to the little league baseball team he is coaching. "And I'm blown away by your ability to show up." If this kind of dialogue suits your tastes, so be it. I found this kind of soppy pep-talk, which is scattered all about "Hardball", to be pretentious and formulaic. "Hardball" is the kind of sports drama that's been done about a thousand times before. Its got an unpleasant ring to it that makes it feel like "The Mighty Ducks play Baseball." For those of you interested in the plot, it mainly concerns Keanu Reeves as a troubled gambler indebted to several different bookies. In order to get some money, he agrees to coach a baseball team from the projects. They are horrible, and he has a very limited knowledge of anything having to do with baseball. The film starts off uninteresting and stays that way. It seems to have no emotional arc, because even though things happen, they are presented in an uneven and derivative way. For example, there is supposed to be a romance between Reeves's character and Elizabeth Wilkes (Diane Lane), but in no way is it romantic. After one and a half hours it still goes nowhere. It seems like director Brian Robbins doesn't know the rules of dramatic suspense, either. There are quite a few scenes where something big is about to happen, and then the scene just ends. Building up suspense is step one, but you can't satisfy a viewer without a climax. Even after we know what happened in the time we missed, we still feel discontented. How are we supposed to feel happy for someone when it seems like what we're told is unimportant? And then there are the kids. The actors do a good job, considering how stale their roles are. Something about all sports films featuring kids that irks me is how one-dimensional they almost always are. "Hardball" is no exception. The kids' entire reason for being rests on one characteristic. For example, this kid is the one with asthma; this one always wears his headphones; this is the little cute one. I would love to see a film that would be able to handle the task of fleshing out its multiple child characters; "Hardball" is obviously not that film. "Hardball" isn't a horrible film, but it doesn't take us anywhere. Were lead to believe that the characters progress to a more mature state, but nothing of that kind is emoted from the actors. The direction is too confused to successfully create a nice, solid work. "Hardball" will work for some, but if you can't stand bad melodrama (or Keanu Reeves' acting, for that matter), this film isn't for you.
Rating: Summary: I didn't know it was... Review: ...still legal to produce movies like this one. Seems like they had a 20 million $ budget. 20 million for Reeves and 50 bucks for the rest... It's all been done. It'a all been here before. But this movie is the 500.000.th of a kind of movie I thought we already had enough of. What I like about the film: its predicability. I simply love the way the romance is introduced. Up high in the competition for corniest scenes in the last twenty years. Oh and when the little boy was shot...please don't read on when you're easily offended...that was oh well, let's put it this way, rather a laugh than a cry. holy joy of cliché. From what I have learned reality is far from the kind of Disney-Ghettoism promoted in here... All in all: how can hell be any worse?
Rating: Summary: The Kids are Not Funny Review: I was disappointed after the movie ended because it looked like it would be a typical coming-of-age film about a gambling Keanu Reeves who needed to get back on track. He coached a little baseball team and hated it. I hated it just by watching it. The soppy ending ruined whatever chance this movie had of being different from the others, but it just fell flat.
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: About taking chances Review: Hardball is as many other reviewers have said: a decent movie about a drinking, gambling man (Reeves, who plays Connor) who owes more than one bookie much more money than he has, and about his time spent coaching an inner-city boys baseball team. What is different about Hardballs than other similar movies about kids baseball teams? It's about taking chances (more than just gambling), and shooting down some stereotypes about people - kids who don't care or don't study, parents who aren't aware of what their kids are doing, etc. There is a boy on the team whose mother only allows him to play baseball if Connor will agree to help the boy read the books he is assigned and keep up in class. One of the best scenes off the field was when the boy is called upon in class and since he is silent, he is assumed to have NOT read the book. When he finally speaks, it's rewarding to both the teacher, Connor, and the audience. The kids on the team (the Kekambas) learn to take a chance on each other; we don't get to see much of the process of their learning to encourage one another and learning NOT to back-talk or argue with one another, but we do get a glimpse of how Connor tries to guide them away from teasing that hurts to being teammates that help one another. Not only does Connor take a chance by leaving what he knows of gambling behind to help the kids on his team, but the kids (and in some cases, the parents, and the kids' teacher) really take a chance on Connor, too. When he quits the team, when he tells off the teacher - what happens to the kids? Watch and see.
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