Review of Calvin Marshall (2009) by Jiana W — 08 Feb 2012

Steve Zahn is really the best and funniest thing about this movie. Not used to seeing him in roles like this, but he's pretty likeable in whatever he does. Alex Frost isn't very charismatic. I've seen him in another movie ("A Vicious Mind") playing a pretty similar role. Frost is the title character, Calvin, who dreams of playing in the MLB but can't even make the cut on a junior college squad. His crabby, cussing coach, Coach Little, has pity on him and keeps him around as a morale-booster/mascot.

Calvin, while sweet to Tori, just isn't very sympathetic. Most of the time when he's with her I notice he talks mostly about himself and kind of brags. He lies, he's deluded about his own abilities. Yeah, I just don't feel much for him as a lead character.

But I do like the theme of the story. Calvin tries and tries to make his dream come true but he's simply not good enough for a MLB career. However there are smaller instances in his life (helping a little league team and playing for another team) which showcases what he's good at. It's disappointing to him that things don't work out the way he wants but he learns to roll with the punches and accept small defeats.