Rating of
3/4
Good historical baseball film
TheWolf - wrote on 08/06/07
There are some good performances to be found here. Tom Hanks - reunited with Director Penny Marshall (they worked together previously on "Big") offered his usual high calibre performance as Jimmy Dugan - an alcoholic ex-baseball star who (against his will) is assigned to manage the Rockford Peaches. Geena Davis was great as Dottie Hinson, the Peaches catcher and - as Dugan describes her - "the best player in the league." I was also impressed by Lori Petty as Kit Keller, Dottie's little sister. In a relatively brief role through the first half hour or so of the movie, Jon Lovitz was entirely believable as the scout (Ernie Capadino) who discovered Dottie and got her to agree to play. Several other "big" names appear - most notably Madonna and Rosie O'Donnell as teammates on the Peaches.
While Madonna has seemed to fall off the sanity wagon, and O'Donnell can't step past her psychosis to get out of her own way these days, they did put on a good show in the movie. Personally I think the best performances were by Lori Petty, Jon Lovitz, and Tom Hanks. I would watch the movie again for their characters.
