Review of Million Dollar Arm (2014) by James R — 31 May 2014

I'm a bit of a sucker when it comes to sports films. Especially, the ones where it takes someone out of a familiar element and they ultimately succeed. Million Dollar Arm is one of those films that tugs just at the right strings and comes out a pretty solid film.

Jon Hamm stars as JB Bernstein a sports agent whos on his last lap. He needs to come up with something big to get back into the big times. Along with his partner they come up with a challenge where they travel to India to find a cricket player that can throw over 80mph and possibly be trained to become a major league pitcher in America.

JB finds two pitchers, Rinku (played by Suraj Sharma famous for his role in Life of Pi) and Dinesh (played by Madhur Mittal who some may remember was the brother in Slumdog Millionaire). They travel back to America and JB finds everything is a bit over his head balancing life and taking care of these two kids who are not only his investment, but his responsibility as well.

It also features some really good co-stars, a translater named Amit (played by Indian star Pitobash) has a really great scene at the end conveying the meaning of peoples dreams and how inspiring someone can spark a revolution of ideas.

Lake Bell plays Brenda JB's tenant and a person who finally makes him realize what he needs to do. Alan Arkin is a scout named Ray who only has a few scenes, but he is great in them. Overall, I really enjoyed the film and learning about the story of the two Indian men's journey to the big leagues.

One gripe I had was that JB seems to transform over night to a different person halfway through the film, but I felt like it's explained thoroughly by the end. Overall, I highly recommend and baseball, sports fans and anyone looking for an interesting story to check this one out!