Rating: 
Summary: INSPIRATIONAL STORY FOR ALL!
Review: This is a great story of Never say die, kids and adults can gleen from this story of family, fatherly love and dedication to the best game on earth. It is nice to see that movies have a soul and not just t&a and foul language.I highly recommend this to families and young asipiring atheletes.
Rating: 
Summary: Most enjoyable
Review: This was a great family movie and from what I have read, stayed pretty close to the true story of Jim Morris. No sense in re-hashing what the movie was about....by now, everyone knows. Suffice to say that Dennis Quaid was perfect for the role of Morris and played him so well as a man needing just one more shot at his dream. Rachel Griffiths, one of my favorite actresses, does a good job as Morris' understanding wife. I miss seeing her in "big" roles since she became part of the series "Six Feet Under" which obviously does not leave her much time for films. The movie captures us because it is about people we can like, has good actors, and the characters are trying to reach their goals. Viewers can connect with this. I also liked that Quaid did not play Morris as a man whose life would be incomplete if he did not have one more shot at success. He played this man as a content individual who, when given an opportunity to re-make his history, takes it with some reluctance. It is not a great movie but is one that is well-made and enjoyable. Sometimes that is all we need.
Rating:
Summary: Love This Movie
Review: I love this movie, the cast is very good. Dennis Quaid was awesome as the lead Coach Morris. And Rachel Griffith from the show Six Feet Under was awesome as well. It was nice to see her in a different role. The story is very insparitonal. I think that this is a great movies for kids and adults. It shows that it's never too late.
Rating:
Summary: A Very Satisfying Film
Review: A great, believable, based-on-a-true-story, baseball film......pure corporate Disney, right? Well, this one has all that but the acting of Dennis Quaid manages to pull the entire film above the corporate hero-sob-story formula. This one actually works on a number of levels....you choose....great kid's film with an inspirational stick-to-it theme, adult underdog mid-life crisis film, or psychological interpersonal reaction maturity dealing with mortality lesson. There are certainly better baseball films, certainly better baseball stories to tell, but this one is out, it works wonderfully, and you should not miss the thrill of watching it unfold, the drama of the underdog run, re-run, and re-run again, and the heat, the dust, and the sweat play out. This is a good one....don't miss it......and don't read those reviews that give away the story line either.
Rating:
Summary: A Real Life FIELD OF DREAMS
Review: This is undoubtedly one of the best baseball movies ever made and one that will be enjoyed by anyone who has dreams and believes that you should never lose hope. As is well known to baseball fans, at age 35 Jim Morris became one of the oldest rookies in recent history to break into the major leagues when he became a relief pitcher with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. (Several players from the Negro Leagues were older when the color line in the majors was finally broken.) This is his story. Due to bad luck and arm surgery, Jim had given up on his dreams and was teaching and coaching high school ball in Texas but continued to throw because he loved the game. He was also married with three small children. As motivation to his team, he agreed that if they fulfilled their dream of making the state playoffs after several losing seasons in a town where football was king, he would go to tryout camp one more time. Much to his amazement, they turned their season around; he tried out, threw the ball at 98 MPH despite the disbelief of the professional scouts, and as they say, the rest is history. Dennis Quaid is perfect as Morris, and Rachel Griffiths conveys her ambivalence at seeing her husband put his life on hold and leave his family to ride around the country on minor league busses despite his father's advice that it was time to get on with his life rather than pursue his dream. The high school kids and townspeople are all memorable characters who become as familiar as our neighbors during the movie, and Morris' son is a real scene stealer. Finally the pace of the movie is appropriate to the sport, rather than being hurried the story is allowed to unfold in the same enjoyable way a game can be watched on a sunny afternoon (even the grass on the field has a place in the story). Thus, the suspense is not about what will eventually happen, but rather how it happens. You get to enjoy watching the character development and the many interesting incidents that lend color to the story along the way. And the pitching sequences are vintage baseball for the true fans. I saw this several times in the theatre. The DVD has additional material, including comments by the real Jim Morris. While it is enjoyable even on a screen as small as those at airline seats, I recommend watching it on as large a TV screen as possible because the baseball scenes themselves are much more lifelike.
Rating:
Summary: Charming, without saccharine
Review: Dennis Quaid turns in yet another fine performance (I've yet to see him turn in a stinker) as Jim Morris in this biopic that has a lot of heart, a lot of humor, and some moments that are genuinely moving as a result both of the director's restraint and of the performances by Quaid and Australian actress Rachel Griffiths, who seems, like Quaid, genetically unable to turn in anything less than her best. In this film, she is utterly authentic as a Texan, and offers a believably conflicted portrayal of a wife who wants more for her family but also doesn't have the heart or conscience to deprive her husband of a second chance at the major leagues in baseball. This is one of the year's "nicer" films, in that it doesn't beat up the audience with the points it wants to make but, rather, assumes that the general public has functioning intelligence; so we're allowed to determine the subtext for ourselves. British actor Brian Cox (the best Hannibal ever; see Manhunter) turns in a solid performance as Quaid's military father; the supporting cast is uniformly good. Overall, this is a film that leaves you feeling satisfied--not all gooey over false sentiment, but glad to know that every now and then someone who deserves it actually has his/her dream come true.
Recommended.
Rating:
Summary: The Rookie
Review: I took my children 6 and 9 to see this in the theater. It is a great feel good movie. Because the movie is based on a true story and a real person, it is even more inspirational. We actually saw it twice. Kids and adults will enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Inspirational human interest story
Review: As someone who loves films and baseball, this film was a mixed bag for me. As a human interest story it is excellent, but as a baseball story it is somewhat of a disappointment. It is a very upbeat tale of Jim Morris (Dennis Quaid), a high school science teacher who rediscovers his fastball at the age of 35 and tries out for the major leagues. The story mixes together his personal quest and that of the high school baseball team he coaches, both of which overcome incredible odds to achieve near impossible feats. As a baseball story, Jim Morris is really nothing more than an interesting footnote in baseball history. There are far more compelling baseball stories to be told, like Tommy John who came back from reconstructive surgery to pitch another 14 seasons (that were some of his best), or Jim Abbott who was born without a right hand and pitched in the major leagues for ten years, pitching a no hitter against Cleveland in 1993. Morris only played for Tampa Bay for parts of two seasons, pitching a total of 15 innings with a 4.80 ERA and almost as many walks as strikeouts. Still, it is pretty inspirational that he made it to the majors at all given his age. This film plays well on Main Street, where regular folks are reminded of the faded fantasies of their youth. It strikes a chord because to root for Morris is to root for their long abandoned dreams. Director John Lee Hancock does a fine job of bringing out the best in the human story, although the sports components are marginal. There are just too many instances of unrealistic baseball in this film. For instance, Morris is repeatedly shown throwing as hard as he can with absolutely no warm-up. Any little leaguer can tell you that you will blow out your arm if you do that. This is especially unrealistic given the fact that Morris had surgery on that shoulder when he was younger. Unless he was plain stupid, he would warm up before he attempted to throw flat out. As an athlete, Quaid is not terribly convincing, with pitching mechanics that are far short of professional caliber. Kevin Costner was much more credible in "For Love of the Game", though that film lacked the story of this one. From an acting perspective Dennis Quaid is marvelous in the lead. This is one of the best performances of his career. He is convincing as the high school coach pushing his kids to reach for their dreams and maximize their potential. His chemistry with the young cast is terrific. However, in the pursuit of his own dream, he is even better. This is a complex and nuanced performance showing Morris as filled with desire and self doubt. Quaid's portrayal of his determination in the face of his own insecurity is phenomenally insightful and compelling. Rachel Griffiths and Brian Cox give splendid performances and Morris' wife and father. This is a wonderful feel-good film that is great for the whole family. I've been a little hard on it because I'm a long time baseball fanatic, but the human interest story is so well done and Quaid's performance so compelling that I have to give it at least an 8/10. This is a film that everyone can enjoy, regardless of whether you love sports.
Rating:
Summary: Predictable and "by-the-numbers", but enjoyable
Review:
Dennis Quaid's likeablity raises this from an average movie to an enjoyable one. The story is predictable and there are few surprises. The performances seem unchallenging, in the sense that the actors could (and just about did) sleepwalk through their parts. And on an odd filmmaking note you wonder whether they were strapped for cash in making the movie because in most of the scenes that involve him coaching a high-school team he apparently only has about 5 players, which comes off as kind of strange. Nevertheless it's a "phoned-in" feel-good movie that rises just a little above mind-candy.
Rating: 
Summary: I thought it was going to be better.....
Review: Great story, Great actors, but boring. I was really let down when watching this film. I thought Dennis Quaid was very emotional and the kids that played his children were fun. Sad to say, I was ready to fall asleep. The movie seemed to really drag. A good family movie, but the kids might get bored.
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