Review of Million Dollar Arm (2014) by Daniel B — 15 May 2014

I love the game of baseball. It provides the perfect backdrop to stories that can send your heart soaring. I feel that almost all of the best sports movies produced have been baseball movies. Unfortunately, I can't put "Million Dollar Arm" in that same lofty list.

While it was produced by the same group that made "The Rookie", they forgot the elements that made a movie like "The Rookie" so good - a child-like awe and wonder at the privilege to play a kids game for a living and the depth of the bond that baseball can build between a father and his child. "Million Dollar Arm" spends far too much of its screen time with a cynicism that doesn't do the story justice.

I think part of the problem is the editing. The pace seems to race the audience through the process of JB Bernstein coming up with the idea to look to Indian cricket players for the next great baseball star, and then it plods along and drags the viewer through far too long a sequence in India while looking for these stars. It just seems out of balance.

The other problem this editing and pace issue creates is that the end of the movie just seems rushed. They spent all this time in India finding these potential stars and then when they make it, there is little time for a whoop and a holler celebration and the credits are rolling. The worst part is that they tell the best part of the story - that the boys actually get drafted by a Major League Baseball tesm - with a series of news clips and pictures BEHIND THE CREDITS! Look - I am not a filmmaker, but I know you are supposed to have the audience on their feet or in tears BEFORE the credits roll.

One other issue - why does Jon Hamm look like he is constantly hung over for the entire movie? Is there some dramatic effect being sought by making him look like he just crawled out of a bottle? I understand he is at the end of his rope, but if I was a sports star, I probably wouldn't sign with him either!

I was disappointed with the fact that given such a great true story and the example of so many great baseball movies that have been made in the past that Disney couldn't make this film better. The pieces are all there, but the pace and editing and the choice to put the crescendo of the story during the credits just drained all the potential right out of the film.