Review: Hardball

Keanu Reeves's film goes back a step, or two…

An unexpected change of direction for Reeves…

Reeves has played Hamlet on stage, refused $11 million to star in Speed 2 and is rated a more powerful force in Hollywood than Ben Affleck, Nicolas Cage, Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio. So why would he do this? A re-run of the old Bad News Bears/Mighty Ducks formula, Hardball is threadbare, predictable, sentimental, manipulative and amateurish..

But it should be no surprise. Director Brian Robbins brought us Good Burge and Varsity Blues. The star is Reeves, an actor whose post-Speed credits include Johnny Mnemonic, A Walk in the Clouds and Feeling Minnesota. And the subject is the training of a deadbeat gang of kids who comprise the sorriest baseball team this side of Tom Berenger’s Major League. And who’s to train them? Keanu’s kinetic, nicotine-fuelled loser who hates children and is in it just for the money, a paltry $500 a week...

by James Cameron-Wilson

Read the full review in
Film Review (Sum)

Review © Visual Imagination 2002. Not for reproduction

Taken from

Film Review (Sum)
#619, Summer 2002
ships from May 23 2002
News-stand Price
UK £3.00 / US $7.95

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