Product Details

• Actors: Kevin Costner, Kelly Preston, John C. Reilly, Jena Malone, Brian Cox
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Special Edition, NTSC
• Subtitles: Spanish
• Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Universal Studios
• VHS Release Date: August 15, 2000
• Run Time: 137 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (161 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00004U2N7
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #483,365 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Billy Chapel (Kevin Costner) is having a bad day. His girlfriend Jane (Kelly Preston, stunning as ever) says she's leaving, and his boss (Brian Cox) says he's selling the business and ace employee Billy may be out of job. Sounds like business as usual for an old-fashioned veteran. However, the business is baseball and for Billy Chapel, the 40-year old former all-star for the Detroit Tigers, it means his career--and his life--is at a crossroads.

Although it is no Bull Durham, For Love of the Game finds a solid and very believable role for Costner. The film is based on Michael Shaara's (The Killer Angels) stream-of-consciousness novel (the rough manuscript was found after his death 1988). The entire film takes place on Billy's day on the mound against the Yankees, a meaningless late-season game for the Tigers, but everything for Billy. In flashbacks, he lingers over his long relationship with Jane and his baseball career (from World Series heroism to a career-threatening injury). His one viable link to the game at hand is his catcher, played winningly by John C. Reilly. Costner, like Chapel, is looking for one more great performance, but the film is too simplistic and loopy at times to resonate. The love story has an extra helping of cuteness, and legendary baseball announcer Vin Scully nearly takes on a leading role, waxing grandiloquent. It's no grand slam, but a solid double. --Doug Thomas

From The New Yorker

The Detroit Tigers pitcher Billy Chapel (Kevin Costner), a forty-year-old right-hander with a sore shoulder, works on a perfect game against the Yankees, and, as he pitches, innings of his relationship with a magazine writer and single mother (Kelly Preston), pass through his mind. Billy is a combination of stoic warrior and Hemingway's old man in the sea, fighting the great fish. And yet the movie is not all idealization: Billy can be cold and self-involved, and "For Love of the Game" asks whether the same qualities that make an athlete a champion don't also destroy his happiness. The answer, unfortunately, is long-winded and redundant, and the iron-larynxed baseball announcer Vin Scully, who narrates the game, turns everything into a cliché. But some of the baseball scenes are good. With John C. Reilly as Billy's tender-hearted catcher. Written by Dana Stevens, who adapted Michael Shaara's novel, and directed by Sam Raimi, who shows an unexpected flair for popular romance. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars For The Love of the Game, March 30, 2008

By 

Kelly "Reviewer for The Sinfully Sensuous" (Littleton, Colorado) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: For Love of the Game (DVD)

Kevin Costner gives a very compelling performance as a baseball player at the end of his career. He is very realistic in the role and brings thought provoking issues to light. How do you decide to hang up your glove and leave a game that has been the most important thing in your life? It was great that he could personally do the pitching in this movie because it would have lost a lot of the realism and credibility if they had to use someone else.

27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Baseball Story, April 17, 2000

By 

"flickjunkie" - See all my reviews

This review is from: For Love of the Game (VHS Tape)

This is an excellent baseball movie and a decent romantic entry as well. Billy Chapel (Kevin Costner) is a veteran pitcher with an accomplished career who is headed for the Hall of Fame. On the day we meet him he has a lot on his mind. He is informed that his team is being sold, he is being traded and the love of his life is moving to England. Add to this the pain in his pitching arm, his impending decision on whether to retire and the fact that winning this game is critical in determining if the Yankees go to the playoffs, and you have a man with overloaded neurons.

The story unfolds as an introspective retrospective. As he is pitching this important game, he is thinking about his childhood, his relationship with Jane (Kelly Preston) and how he is going to get the next batter out. He is so preoccupied that it doesn't even dawn on him until the eighth inning that there have been no Yankee hits and he has been pitching a perfect game.

The flashback elements are expertly woven into the game, giving us a genuine feeling for his distraction. This is a fresh perspective for a sports movie. Instead of simply focusing on what the player is doing, the film focuses on what he is thinking while he is doing it. It gives us an authentic look at how athletes get "in the zone", filtering out all the noise and concentrating totally on their performance. Those who have been involved in athletic competition can identify with this state, although only the best can achieve it at will.

Sam Raimi's direction on this film was excellent. His direction of the love story was nothing special, but he did a superb job on the baseball scenes. The combination of on the field action, commentary by Vin Scully and simulated TV telecast footage was so well done that it was impossible to differentiate it from a major league game in progress.

The acting ranged from fair to excellent. Kelly Preston was very good as Jane. She brought a full range of emotional expression to the part, though she sometimes got a little shrill, like the scene in the hospital where she screams out "Is this America? Is baseball still the national pastime." Overall though, she played the part of the torn lover very well.

Kevin Costner is no great lead actor and it is hard to understand why he is so popular. Perhaps it is his whiny lost boy charm that makes women want to mother him. In the love story, he again presented as listless and uninspired. But in the baseball scenes, he came alive. In fact, in these scenes Costner was not acting so much as acting out. He loves baseball and was obsessed with doing all his own baseball scenes. He is a top notch athlete, so he really could throw a curveball and his fastball had plenty of pop. His ability to portray a professional athlete in this instance was superlative, probably due to his having played the game scholastically. So overall, I would have to rate his performance here as very good.

John Reilly gets a very honorable mention as Chapel's catcher. He was quietly supportive and unobtrusive, the way catchers usually are. He portrayed intense desire in a demure and low key way without overacting. It was a nice performance by an actor in a supporting role playing a baseball player in a supporting role.

I love baseball and this was a great baseball movie so I rated it 8/10. Anyone who enjoys sports will probably enjoy this film.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars for love of the game, December 15, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: For Love of the Game (DVD)

this was a great movie about a mlb pitcher, in possibly his last game, looking back on the last 5 years of his life with his gf, jane. i thought kevin costner was great.