LouHomey From my favorite movies..

Claire Dunne One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Wyatt There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

SnoopyStyle Billy Chapel (Kevin Costner) is a worn-out 40 year old former ace pitcher for The Detroit Tigers. He's given the start of last game of a disastrous season against the Yankees in NYC. The Yankees are looking to clinch the East with a win. Tigers' owner Gary Wheeler (Brian Cox) has just sold the team and the new owners want to trade Billy to the Giants. His best friend is his catcher Gus Sinski (John C. Reilly). His girlfriend Jane Aubrey (Kelly Preston) tells him that she is taking a job in London. He has the best game in awhile pitching a perfect game. The movie flashes back and forth from the present to his life courting Jane and reconnecting with his daughter Heather (Jena Malone).The movie tries so hard with every baseball cliché. It doesn't add anything original that other Costner movies and The Natural doesn't already have put out. Every pitch is striving for sentimentality. The baseball stuff builds to a pretty compelling ninth inning. That's kind of what happens in a real baseball game. The bigger problem is that the romance is as bland as it gets. The romance lacks any bite or surprises. It's the least compelling thing in the movie. At least the baseball stuff works a little even if it is cliché.

ThreeThumbsUp This movie didn't take long to get sappy and cheesy. It begins with a montage of Billy Chappel's (Kevin Cosner) life leading up to his final pitching performance in New York against the Yankees. Before the game, he finds out that the Tigers' beloved owner is selling the team and his girlfriend is moving to London. "There's a job there Billy. A good job. An editor's position." It gets worse. Before taking the field, he takes a whiff of his old glove and there it is, his first flashback to his childhood; playing ball in the back yard. As he's warming up in the bullpen before the game, his manager wants to start a young catcher, but Billy insists that his buddy Gus start instead. "If Gus doesn't play, I don't pitch." OK then. As the game rolls along, he flashes back to his romance with Kelly Preston and everything is just dandy. He's got a perfect game until, wait, what? The young prospect he met before the game that used to be his bat-boy comes to the plate... Only redeeming factor is the actual baseball action. Looks real enough and it was filmed in Yankee Stadium.

Steven Sam Raimi, who is probably most famous for the Spider-Man films and the Evil Dead films, shows that he can do more than action and horror films with the baseball drama For Love of the Game. He proves that he is a good storyteller.Kevin Costner stars as Billy Chapel, a pitcher in the nineteenth season of his career, all of it spent with the Detroit Tigers. He is in New York to play the Yankees in a series in what may be the last game of his career.As he is playing at Yankee Stadium, at many times on and off the pitcher's mound, Chapel flashes back to many moments in his past. The majority of these flashbacks involve Jane Aubrey, Chapel's on-again and off-again girlfriend, played by Kelly Preston. She is a magazine writer who gets offered a job in London. Unfortunately for Billy, her plane leaves for London during his game.The best parts of this story is the mix of the current game Billy is in and the flashbacks he has. Not sure what he has ahead of him, he is making history with this game against the Yankees.Costner gives a rich performance as Billy Chapel. To me, his character as a baseball player makes me think of pitchers like Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, Randy Johnson, and Pedro Martinez, all of who I watched pitch when I was a kid. When he is not playing, he does great at taking his memories and later using them in the game. The biggest part of Costner's performance is on thinking about if he should try to keep playing, hanging up his cleats, or go after the woman he loves.Preston also gives a great performance here as Aubrey. She does a good job of showing Jane as an independent woman, yet also trying to keep a stable relationship with Billy when they are dating. It may seem like the typical girlfriend role, but she is there to support him at his low points and high points of his career.Also giving a great supporting turn in this film is John C. Reilly as Billy's catcher, Gus Sinski. Both on and off the field, Gus is always looking after Billy, and saying that he's got his back. On what seems like a small role, Reilly knocks it out of the park at being the guy Billy can always turn to, even when he's drunk.If you enjoy baseball films, this is well worth it. I like to think of this, Field of Dreams, and Bull Durham as a trilogy, even though the only things they have in common are that they are baseball films starring Kevin Costner. If you are not a baseball fan, you should still check this out because it is more than a baseball film.

PJ Fuller A couple of quick points. First, John C. O'Reilly was really, REALLY miscast in this movie, There's no way he should have been cast, but he played the character as a sentimental sap....most catchers are hard-ass, get-it-done now guys who know the game well - but not overly sentimental. This really affected the baseball aspect of the movie. Second...the trade to the Giants. The trading deadline is done by this time of the year, and the waiver-wire deals are also done, so there's no way he'd be traded - especially to name the team he'd be traded to. That's a call for the GM. A better plot line would to be that the new owners want to commit to a youth movement and will move Chapel in the off-season for a prospect or two...but either way, he's done in Detroit. But Costner & baseball are a good fit - bad fitting uni's and all...