Hardball

Charming Keanu
In general I find Keanu Reeves to be stiff, wooden and lacking in acting skills. This is one of only 4 movies I really liked and appreciated him in. (Speed, The Watcher and The Gift are the others). In Hardball which is based on a true story Reeves plays a ne-er do well gambler with a big debt to pay off and ends up coaching an inner city little league team. The kids on the team are coping with all of the ills of project living you can imagine - random shootings, death, drugs, gangs, intimidation. Baseball offers them some respite from their reality. One of the sweetest scenes of this movie is when Reeves takes the kids to see their first major league baseball game and they yell to Sammy Sosa who acknowledges them...sweet, sweet, sweet. Watching the kids and spectators start singing Big Poppa by Biggie Smalls during a game is a hoot and a half. The ending is such a tear jerker that it is almost embarrassing to feel so moved by such a small story. And realize that it's a true...

Hardball
The movie proved that Keanu Reeves is very capable of expressing emotions on screen, contrary to his harshest critics. He was able to convey his initial attitude change from someone who was only coaching a kid's baseball team for money he desparately needed, to someone who genuinely cared with subtle finesse. It wasn't a cartoon character performance. The child actors also performed at a professional level not expected from their age group.

Keanu Reeves And His Baseball Team Are A Natural For Family Viewing...
I found this Chicago based baseball movie different than most involving children's teams. This group of disbelieving kids didn't quite need their coach as much as Coach Conner O'Neill (Keanu Reeves) needed them. Diane Lane enters the mix portraying their school teacher with a much shorter screen time. They begin a relationship that does not end up very developed in the long run although it works well with the story. An uninspired replacement coach and the team of misfits that turn his life around.

I liked this because the focus remained on the children's relationship with their coach. Although this leaves the door wide open for the budding couple at the ending, the movie closes in almost entirely on the strong emotional pull these boys have on Coach Conner. They must overcome many hardships to find their place within their own selves and in their surrounding lives.

Conner gets coerced into coaching because of having to pay off his ever increasing gambling debts...

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