Homerun: The Movie

Might as well enliven this old blog just a bit.

I just saw the movie Homerun, at the request of my wife.  It is the first real kidless ‘date’ we have had in probably 4 years or more.  I have a review of the date in my other blog.  This is a review of the movie itself.  And there WILL be a few spoilers, such that they could be for this particular movie.

Basically this is a movie about redemption and recovery that happens to include a bit of baseball and a lot of feel good moments.  The protagonist is a pro baseball player who is also an alcoholic.  I give high marks to Scott Elrod who plays the lead as Corey.  He looks like he could actually play pro ball.  As an actor I thought he did a good job with the role he was given.  I give all of the actors and actresses high marks.

I would say the movie is ‘good’ based on acting and on the message which is positive.  But it is definitely not a great movie.  And the fault rests largely on the writing where there is a promising story that is just not developed enough and lacks emotional punch.  Almost everything that happens is predictable.  I’m not against predictability if it is used in some productive way that takes the audience beyond what they were expecting.  For instance the scene where he is speeding in the car with his brother, apparently drunk.  I could see the car wreck a mile away.  As a writer, I would have killed off the brother, setting up for lots more vitriole with his sister-in-law and a more powerful story of redemption.  As it is, the brother really served no other role in that movie after that crash except as a marginally supporting character.

I did enjoy Corey’s connection to the little league team he was coaching, but the interactions with the assistant coach who is also a widow and has a son in need of a father figure was entirely too predictable.  I think the fatherhood angle either needed more work or be dropped altogether as it seemed like the movie was trying to do too much resulting in nothing done overly well.

One bright spot was Vivica Fox who played the agent.  She played her role very well and added life to the screen whenever she appeared.

This movie felt overly long, which is always a bad sign in my book.  If I start wondering what time it is and how much longer, I have probably paid too much.  But others in the theater seemed to thoroughly enjoy the movie, so my experience might not be typical.  If you enjoyed Fireproof you will probably enjoy this movie too.