Talent for the Game

Rating

Director

Robert M. Young

Screenplay

David Himmelstein, Tom Donnelly, Larry Ferguson

Length

1h 31m

Starring

Edward James Olmos, Lorraine Bracco, Jeff Corbett, Jamey Sheridan, Terry Kinney, Thomas Ryan, Felton Perry, Tom Bower, Janet Carroll

MPAA Rating

PG

Review

PREFACE:
In the early 2000s, I was writing reviews for an outfit called Apollo Guide Reviews. That website has since been closed down.

Attempting to reconstruct those reviews has been an exercise in frustration. Having sent them to Apollo Guide via email on a server I no longer have access to (and which probably doesn’t have records going back that far), my only option was to dig through The Wayback Machine to see if I could find them there. Unfortunately, while I found a number of reviews, a handful of them have disappeared into the ether. At this point, almost two decades later, it is rather unlikely that I will find them again.

Luckily, I was able to locate my original review of this particular film. Please note that I was not doing my own editing at the time, Apollo Guide was. As such, there may be more than your standard number of grammatical and spelling errors in this review. In an attempt to preserve what my style had been like back then, I am not re-editing these reviews, which are presented as-is.

REVIEW:
The American Dream is to find success through adversity, rising above all others to emerge as a victor. Talent for the Game tells the story of talent scout fighting for his career in search of the next big baseball phenom.

Edward James Olmos plays Virgil Sweet, an old-fashioned talent scout who gauges the ability of potential baseball stars by sight and sound, not through the fancy gadgets that his counterparts are using. The Angels have decided to scale back the program and Virgil may lose his job if he can’t find the next big thing. He and his wife Bobbie (Lorraine Bracco) go on the road to find that one and he’s hiding in a small rural town, the son of a local pastor. Sammy Bodeen (Jeff Corbett) has what it takes to become a star but his newness may prevent him from succeeding.

Talent for the Game explores the winning and losing relationship between Virgil, Sammy and the baseball franchise. There are lots of hard-fought battles that lead to explosive conflicts and there are plenty of impassioned responses that lead toward an all-too-tidy conclusion.

Olmos has a gift for making the tough, fatherly characters he has often played seem real. Like his performance in Stand and Deliver, Olmos understands here how to play off his students and help them find themselves while finding himself along the way. Bracco stays in the background as the supportive wife who knows what’s best for her husband but lets him discover it on his own. Corbett, on the other hand, sticks out like a sore thumb, much like the character he plays. He’s a tender soul but is tremendously awkward.

The screenplay is typical of the sports fans movie. Talent for the Game features long, drawn-out scenes at the baseball park where a critical game will decide the fate of the film’s characters. There are arguments between the managers and Virgil, and challenges between Virgil and Bodeen. Overall, the film plays like a bad teleplay that hopes its audience will forget they’ve seen this same film countless times in different incarnations.

Talent for the Game leaves you feeling satisfied that the successes and failures of the characters are true and exceptional. The problem is that it is nearly impossible to believe the entire situation is real. The ribbon the filmmakers wrap this package with in the end is tight but not the most beautiful or creative.

Review Written

November 13, 2003