Customer Reviews

Hardball Widescreen Collection

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

this is one great movie.it deaqls with real life problems."One of the most important things in life i showing up.i'm blown away by your ability to show up) very emotional movie.but one of the best ones i have ever seen.

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.

I think this is one of Keanu Reeves best movies!!
No hi-tech sci-fi blow them up movie, a story of a man
down on his luck, who takes a job coaching a inner city
baseball team!!
I give this movie 5 of 5 stars!!

A film, not unlike poetry projects different messages to different people.
This story begins where Conor, a hardened gambler finds himself on his knees in a sanctuary. The priest asks him if he's looking for faith or forgiveness. "I'm looking for the balls to cover the spread." He replies with submissive desperation. He returns to a bar where he loses himself in the purposeless world of gambling, finds himself in the desperate situation of not having enough money to cover his gambling debt, and winds up being beaten up by a loan shark. His desperation leads him to accept a job coaching a baseball team that consists of underprivileged kids from the crime infested projects for $500.00 a week. The team is short two players. Their school teacher, Sister Wilkes, played by Diane Lane, won't allow the two members who complete the team to play until they have read their book reports. Conor takes it upon himself to negotiate with her, and ends up agreeing to tutor the boys. Initially the coaching starts off as merely a means to an end, but as he spends more time with the boys and becomes familiarized with the dangers to which they are exposed and the conditions under which they are forced to live, he recognizes something more important than himself and his own problems. He teaches the boys to respect one another. He helps them to believe in themselves. One day when Conor presents himself in the classroom, dressed in pants that, to the amusement of the children are way too short for him, he finds himself being affected by the words of Kofi, who is requested by Siter Wilkes to give a review on the book that they were assigned to read. "Where I'm from do nobody father come back."
In a sequence of events that follow, Conor finds himself trying to cheer the boys up when they are down. The scene where Conor waves his arms in the air, and sings to B.I.G.'s rap song "Big Poppa" in an attempt to help Miles with his rhythm which he needs in order to pitch well, is both entertaining and heartwarming. For me, the best scene is portrayed when Conor reaches a cross-road, and has to choose between gambling his winnings and treating the Kekambas to a big league game. He chooses to treat the boys to the game, and on seeing the ecstasy on their faces, he derives obvious pleasure at allowing his own inner peace to parallel the happiness he sees in the children. His facial expresion reads - "Yeah, now this feels right!" After a profoundly tragic event, Conor is astounded by the boys' staying power and their ability to always show up; he tells them so.

In a world where we are exposed to an accelerated severing of the threads of human kindness, it is uplifting to watch a film in which the premise encompasses the message -- through the fertilizer a flower may grow. As for the role of Conor, no one could have played the role as perfectly as Keanu Reeves, as he possesses a quality that projects his own isolating sadness, which parallels that of the boys. The boys who played the team members of the Kekambas were outstanding actors. I highly recommend this film for all parents to see.

The longer that you watch this movie, the better it gets.Conor O'Neill (played by Keanu Reeves) is addicted to two things - alcohol and gambling. As far as I could tell, he didn't have a day job -- instead he existed by placing bets with everyone from the barber to the bartender. In his spare time, he scalps tickets with his only buddy.

His bets go bad quickly and he ends up owing a lot of money. When he asks help from a childhood friend who works for a financial institution, he agrees to pay him $500 a week to coach a baseball team of inner-city kids.

My favorite scene is when Conor goes home with one of the kids. He asks why everyone is sitting down. The kid responds that it's too avoid the bullets. When asked what he does for fun, he responds, "Play baseball with you."

After that, Conor is a changed man and the movie keeps getting better. I've never been to the inner-city but I believe that this movie does a good job of showing us what it is like to grow up in that environment.

"One of the most important things in life is showing up," Conor O'Neill (Keanu Reeves) says to the little league baseball team he is coaching. "And I'm blown away by your ability to show up." If this kind of dialogue suits your tastes, so be it. I found this kind of soppy pep-talk, which is scattered all about "Hardball", to be pretentious and formulaic.

"Hardball" is the kind of sports drama that's been done about a thousand times before. Its got an unpleasant ring to it that makes it feel like "The Mighty Ducks play Baseball." For those of you interested in the plot, it mainly concerns Keanu Reeves as a troubled gambler indebted to several different bookies. In order to get some money, he agrees to coach a baseball team from the projects. They are horrible, and he has a very limited knowledge of anything having to do with baseball.

The film starts off uninteresting and stays that way. It seems to have no emotional arc, because even though things happen, they are presented in an uneven and derivative way. For example, there is supposed to be a romance between Reeves's character and Elizabeth Wilkes (Diane Lane), but in no way is it romantic. After one and a half hours it still goes nowhere. It seems like director Brian Robbins doesn't know the rules of dramatic suspense, either. There are quite a few scenes where something big is about to happen, and then the scene just ends. Building up suspense is step one, but you can't satisfy a viewer without a climax. Even after we know what happened in the time we missed, we still feel discontented. How are we supposed to feel happy for someone when it seems like what we're told is unimportant?

And then there are the kids. The actors do a good job, considering how stale their roles are. Something about all sports films featuring kids that irks me is how one-dimensional they almost always are. "Hardball" is no exception. The kids' entire reason for being rests on one characteristic. For example, this kid is the one with asthma; this one always wears his headphones; this is the little cute one. I would love to see a film that would be able to handle the task of fleshing out its multiple child characters; "Hardball" is obviously not that film.

"Hardball" isn't a horrible film, but it doesn't take us anywhere. Were lead to believe that the characters progress to a more mature state, but nothing of that kind is emoted from the actors. The direction is too confused to successfully create a nice, solid work. "Hardball" will work for some, but if you can't stand bad melodrama (or Keanu Reeves' acting, for that matter), this film isn't for you.

I found this inner-city baseball movie different then most involving children's teams. I think that this group of disbelieving kids didn't need their coach as much as Coach Conor O'Neill (Keanu Reeves) needed them. The very talented Diane Lane plays in this as their school teacher, with shorter screen time. She and Reeves begin a relationship that isn't very focused on, although leaves the door wide open at the ending. This movie focuses almost entirely on the strong emotional pull these boys have on Coach Conor, and overcoming hardships to find their place in their lives.

At first I was thinking of this as just shy of a 5 star rating, considering the team that Conor gets coerced into coaching (because of his ever increasing gambling problems). They started out terrible on the field and looked to me, that they would need an incredible amount of development to become cohesive as a team. Then, suddenly when Conor begins as their reluctant coach, they start to really play well (becoming the point, really). I could see later, as the movie went along, that this would involve some unnecessary time in the film. When the real expressed character development falls on Conor, who definitely requires a 'lead in story' and gets a fairly detailed one.

This is a small story that actually roars. Reeves shows a lot of range in his emotions and personal growth with these boys; with his life, his past, even somewhat with Lane (vaguely). Before watching the film, I wasn't too sure of the rating. After viewing it I feel this movie couldn't really convey all that it does without the language, and small amount of violence shown. These boys live this life amongst; bullets, gangs and the turbulence of the inner-city projects.

The movie becomes more 'real' to you and endearing as it goes along. At first Conor isn't a character that I would really want to know, you see how actually desperate he is with an all encompassing gambling problem. He's in debt all over Chicago and with many 'loan sharks'. He first appears uncaring and aloof towards everyone unless he's on a winning streak, although quickly changes; by getting, feeling, and emoting inspiration from his new coaching job. These very special boys, and how badly Conor must change his life when he realizes how much he really does need them, and to be a part of life, it is then that you see the great big Heart to this movie and to himself.

This could be a great family movie, all depending on the tolerance of the language of the 'mean streets' of inner-city Chicago. I certainly enjoyed this one immensely.

Since this movie has been out for a while, it was hard for me to purchase it at my local stores.
It is such a great movie && one of my favorites. I bought it used, but it worked at if it was BRAND NEW.
It DOES NOT HAVE ANY SCRATCHES, MARKS OR FALSE COPY.

Thanks Amazon!! ((:

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 story.

All in all this is a terrific little movie. Reeves and the children are truly a joy to watch. The story jerks your emotions all over the place but it never feels cloying or fake - just a bit manipulated. It's a shame this movie had very little support and was only in theaters for a few minutes. Consequently I often give this as a gift to people so they'll have the opportunity to see such a lovely moving film.

"Hardball" is another of many movies about which I have to say, "I wanted to like it more than I did;" at best, it may be worth watching once. Other reviewers have covered the fact that there is a bit too much cursing in the movie at times, especially by the kids in the movie, and this is one reason why it won't get any repeated viewings or more than a three-star recommendation from me.

Beyond the cursing issue, however, lie some other problems. This movie tries too hard to follow too many formulas: 1) Man coaches underdogs to championship; 2) Man meets woman, loses woman, regains woman; 3) Man turns over a new leaf and finds redemption (of sorts); and 4) Life in the ghetto is hard (and often short). It's difficult to pull together so many divergent story lines in 1 hour and 46 minutes of film time, and "Hardball" leaves you with some blanks that you wish had been filled in.

Far too much time is spent on showing us how low Keanu Reeves' character has sunk. The viewer understands that he is down and out and desperate after the first few minutes, so more time could have been spent on the coaching or romantic storylines.

The kids on the baseball team, in spite of the fact that their cursing isn't as adorable as the filmmakers apparently thought it was, are the best thing about this movie, and the viewer can't help but root for their team to become winners. The problem is that we don't get to see how this happens. In spite of the facts that they are horrible in their first game and that Reeves doesn't seem to know the first thing about coaching baseball, they go on an improbable championship run. As I said, more time could have been better spent showing the interactions and growing relationship between Reeves and the kids.

We also don't see much of the relationship between Reeves' and Diane Lane's characters. They are antagonists at first, and their first `date' (if you could call it that) certainly doesn't bring them closer together. Yet, by the end of the film, they appear to have grown quite close. Again, the viewer just has to accept that this has happened since it is not shown.

By the end of the film, Reeves' character has a changed attitude and approach to life, and he truly cares about coaching the kids. The shooting toward the end of the film hammers home the `life in the ghetto is tough' theme and definitely stirs up the emotions of the viewer. The final outcome of the championship game is predictable and clichéd, but it couldn't have ended any other way after the shooting and it does leave the viewer feeling somewhat fulfilled (in spite of all the gaps contained in the film).