For Love of the Game

Rating:
Summary: Clear the Mechanism- Kevin Costner & Kelly Preston are great
Review: This movie is great! Im a major lover of baseball, and this movie totally portrays the game as what it really is- a great sport. Ive seen this movie countless times, and know most of it by heart. Its a great combination of baseball, love, and the future, filled with great scenes, lines and an amazing cast. I couldnt imagine "Chappy" being anyone else but Kevin Costner- who threw all of the pitches by himself. His dedication to the film is evident throughout, and helps to make it so loveable that youll want to watch it time and time again. I give it 2 thumbs up- Way up!

Rating:
Summary: CONTRIVED AND OVERLY LONG AND SELF-INDULGENT
Review: Another big mistake for Costner. Maybe he thought that because he made two baseball themed pictures that were popular and well received by critics and audiences he could fool us into enjoying another. Well, this overly long (more than two mind numbing hours), sappy, and sentimental flick was just more than one person can bear. It might have been okay, worthy of two stars, had the picture shaved off half an hour of the tale which was much more a DULL love story than it was about America's pastime. (I would prefer a film about the latter, more like The Natural with Robert Redford and Glenn Close). Kelly Preston is almost invariably annoying, and this role is no exception. Somehow the relationship between Preston and Costner's characters are not at all believable and are completely contrived. Dialogue is very... superficial and what makes it worse is its obvious aims for something more sophisticated than it was. These relationship films are a delicate sort of thing, and it takes a special skill to pull them off. Costner and Preston don't have the chemistry to make it happen, and the story is just too... sentimental. Costner's character, an aging baseball pitcher, is making what will be his last appearance in major league baseball, and while he is on the mound (and happens to achieve the grandiose no-hitter as an amazing cap to his, of course-cinematically-amazing career) he reminisces about his relationship with Preston's character. Earlier on the morning of the game, he is notified by the owner of the team that the team is changing ownership and rather than trade Costner, the owner thinks it would be a graceful time for Costner to bow out of baseball, while he is still at the top. Just after this, Billy (Costner's character) is dumped by Preston's character, Jane. Naturally this sends the middle-aged softie (yes, and in all these memories he so generously shares with us for more than two hours of out lives he shows himself to be the kind of guy we all hope to find... the guy who loves us for who we are, who loves our children from previous relationships, and someone who really needs us... which is at the heart of the relationship between Billy and Jane. She thinks he does not need her) into a middle-aged reverie... looking back on the good times, and sadly, the bad. But this is all just sugar and spice and everything nice... even the bad times are not THAT bad, and you won't feel compelled to feel anything about these people. It is just another glossy, overproduced showcase of vanity.

Rating:
Summary: For Love Of His Life, Buy This Movie!
Review: During the course of a once-in-a-lifetime perfect game at Yankee Stadium, an aging baseball pitcher (Costner) for the Detroit Tigers goes through a series of flashbacks about how his life led him to this point, as he finds himself at a major crossing point, both professionally and personally. Professionaly, he may soon be traded out away from the team he's been with for 15 years. Personally, his long-time girlfriend (Preston) may soon be leaving him..

Rating:
Summary: Can't say I love all of it
Review: I have seen this movie four or five times, and each time I see it the baseball parts get better, but the rest of the story gets worse. The baseball parts in this movie may have been some of the best baseball scenes I have ever seen. The storyline of his career is perfect, and the score really tops it of very well. Costner, or Billy Chapel in the movie, comes off as a very likeable character on the team; you see him interact with teamates current or past and you see him as a very sentimental leader. The Chapel of the personal life is not so likeable. He is grouchy and not a very understanding guy; he does a lot of things that come off obnoxious. This is one of the reasons that the personal parts of his story are not so great when you watch them. But, they all fit together to make you feel for Billy Chapel at the end, which is one of the best endings of any sports movies ever. The flashback method works very well in this film. Overall, I have to recommend this movie, if not only for the baseball aspects.

Rating:
Summary: Costner Brought His "A" Game
Review: Baseball has been very, very good to Kevin Costner. In Bull Durham and Field of Dreams, two movies about those diamonds that are a boy's best friend, he gave two of his sprightliest, sexiest performances. Heading out of the dugout once more in For Love of the Game, a romantic drama about a major leaguer who's trying to decide if it's time to leave the game and move on with his life, Costner returns to peak form.

Which is not to say that Game is a great movie. It's not. But it is a darned enjoyable one in a sappy, sentimental way, and it can make grown men cry, something which probably hasn't happened since, well, Field of Dreams. Prophylactic blinking could begin for some softies even before Game's opening credits-showing Costner's character as a child playing catch with his dad-are through.

In Game, Costner portrays a star Detroit Tigers pitcher, Billy Chapel, who has been throwing heat for nearly two decades. Just before a late-season game against the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium, his off-and-on girlfriend (Preston) dumps him, and the Tigers' owner informs Costner he has sold the team and that maybe Costner should quit now or he'll be traded.

During the course of what could possibly be his final game, Costner strikes out batter after batter, blessedly finding himself in what athletes call the Zone. The Flashback Zone is more like it, as he remembers the big moments of his career and his bumpy relationship with Preston.

As Costner heads toward a possible perfect game, and a tearful Preston (who actually makes her lip tremble) heads for the plane that will take her to a new job in London, there's little doubt about how this will end. Helping erase even that uncertainty is Vin Scully, the real-life voice of the L.A. Dodgers, chiming in with the verbal equivalent of a laser pointer ("He's pitching against time now"). But with Costner suited up and in shape, would you want to be anywhere but at the ballpark with him?

Enjoyable meshing of passion--for the woman, for the game.

Rating:
Summary: Not a chick flick!
Review: Men will like this movie....women will find the faults in it.

It does a great job of showing baseball and how relationships are handled during a winning season as well as through injuries but it lacks commitment. Which is exactly what the lead character lacks towards the female lead!

If I wanted to watch a better baseball movie, I would get The Natural or Field of Dreams.

Rating:
Summary: A Good Baseball movie for Baseball fans...
Review: Kevin Costner seems to enjoy acting in epic, mythic movies. He hit the jackpot as Eliot Ness in THE UNTOUCHABLES. His acting was fine in (overrated?) "Dances With Wolves" as it was in "The Postman" and (underrated?)"Waterworld". Playing gentleman superjock, however, seems to be his forte. If you like golf, you probably liked "Tin cup". If you like baseball, you probably enjoyed "Bull Durham" and really liked FIELD of DREAMS. In FOR LOVE of the GAME, director Raimi, author Shaara and "player" Costner have teamed-up to produce a solid piece of American nostalgia. FOR LOVE OF THE GAME is "swan song" not merely about a "great player" but the Great Pastime whose time is past. The movie is cliche-ridden and utterly predictable. Yet it is good, because BASEBALL IS GREAT. In the film, The Yankees are Billy Chapel's final foes...Of course!(Larry Joshua is perfect as archetypally obnoxious New Yorker Yankees'fan). The flash-back, stream-of-consciousness technique employed is perfect to take us back to the time when dads played catch with their boys and parents packed Little League stands to watch their sons "for love of the game."

Billy Chapel pitches a Perfect Game. But hardly by himself. His "family" backing him on the field of dreams, spurred-on by J.C. Reilly as Catcher/Brother, Gus saves the day with miracle-plays. "YOU GOTTA HAVE HEART!" went Damn Yankees'theme and they do. Is the film perfect? Not quite. Mythical? Not quite. THE NATURAL filled that bill portraying players as Knights, and the game as QUEST. But it's an excellent family movie. Again Costner has pulled-off his "act" as American Hero. Maybe Mr. Costner did so well...as another reviewer observed...because he wasn't quite acting. He was getting his chance in the SHOW, "clearing the mechanism". "FOR LOVE OF THE GAME" is a baseball movie for all baseball fans.If there's a message,it's simply there Once was ("upon")a GOOD TIME when Americans were fans for LOVE of the game...

Rating:
Summary: for the love of a good story
Review: From the opening bars of 'summer wind' to the closing scene with Billy and Jane on their knees in the airport lounge finally realising their love I was enchanted by this film. Kevin Costner ( always a favourite) and Kelly Prestman were ideally cast, as was the young actress who played Heather and almost stole the film from Ms Prestman for me.

I loved Field of Dream and Bull Durham and this film, which is a love story about baseball and a love story about humans is an excellent addition to this library

Make a few more like it Kevin!!

Rating:
Summary: I hard film to review
Review: This is really hard movie to review for me. I am a baseball fanatic, so I may be a little biased. I knocked it down from 5 stars to try to compensate for this. The story is good, and well told. The use of flashbacks is excellent. The acting is more than adequate. It really captured the essence of baseball very well, and its place in an American's life. It represented the book well. If you are looking at this as a baseball movie...go get Bull Durham, or The Natural. This is really a love story. I love for a woman, and a love for baseball. It is also the story of modern Americans. To Billy Chapel, his work is his life, and he realizes that as his baseball career is coming to a close, he in a sense is dying. While he remembers his successes, he cant help feel like a failure.

Overall, it deserves a watch...but realize that baseball is the mechanism through which the love and life story is told, so it is not a pure baseball movie. But it is a pretty good one nonetheless.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent twist of baseball and romance
Review: One of the best sports and romance films I have ever seen. "For love of the game," takes you on a unique perspective of the athlete, specifically in this case the pitcher's thoughts through a game. Through each flash back in the game the romance story starts to build as Billy Chapel (Kevin Costner) begins to think back on his five-year relationship with Jane (Kelly Preston).

Sam Raimi has done an excellent job directing this film. His timing was perfect in flipping back and fourth from the past to the present. His direction in both on and off the baseball field proved to be flawless. This is definitely one of his best films as a director to date.

Kevin Costner puts in one of his best performances ever, but then again Costner and sports seem to go along. Where Costner's wonderful performance mostly showed on the baseball diamond, Kelly Preston acting job as Jane was by far the films best performance. She brought a great deal of emotion to the movie and really gave the romance part of the story everything that it needed.

Overall I would recommend this movie to anyone, it hold a great deal of appeal for both men and women.