Million Dollar Arm/Dir. by Craig Gillespie/Walt Disney/Rated PG/124 min.
Disney has a pretty terrific track record with sports movies. Sure, they're all highly sentimental and they have similar scrappy underdog makes good plot arcs, but with the exception of 2006's somewhat pedestrian Glory Road, every one of them has tread the sports movie tropes masterfully. In fact, I personally think that Remember the Titans, The Rookie, and Miracle stand with the best sports movies ever made, and I'm a sucker for a great sports movie. There is something innately inspiring about watching an individual overcome physical and personal adversity to succeed in a make or break game. It's the same thing that makes the Olympics so riveting to watch. Such sporting events become metaphors for the human spirit and the watcher, be they athletes or not, can't help but relate.
Million Dollar Arm, the latest in the canon of Disney sports films is a bit of an odd duck. Yes, it has a climactic scene of sporting prowess and it certainly hits all the emotional beats of a great sports film, but it's also a business drama, a la Moneyball, and an examination of differing cultures being forced to intermingle and younger generations learning to honor their heritage, a la The Namesake, and a story of a man realizing that the life of a solitary bachelor is perhaps not as fulfilling as he once thought, a la Ryan Gosling in Crazy, Stupid, Love. The happy thing is that in spite of all of these varying messages and plot arcs, Million Dollar Arm succeeds because of its solid direction, confident screenplay, and winning performances.
Million Dollar Arm tells the true story of J.B. Bernstein (played by Jon Hamm), a sports agent who sets up a game show in India in an effort to convert the most talented cricket bowlers into world class baseball pitchers. The idea is that not only could they harvest unknown talent, but also gain a nation of over a billion fans for American baseball. The winners of the competition are Rinku Singh (Suraj Sharma, Life of Pi) and Dinesh Patel (Madhur Mittal, Slumdog Millionaire). Neither of them play cricket, but both of them has a fast enough pitch to justify training them for an MBL try out. However, as the pair traverse the landmines of learning an entirely new culture in America, J.B. begins slowly begins to realize that his new investments are changing his life as much as he's changing theirs.
There are moments in Million Dollar Arm that feel a bit trite, particularly as it deals with the culture shock J.B. feels in India and the boys feel in America ("Look! Indian food makes him sick and he hates the chaotic traffic! Funny! Look! The kids from India have never been on an elevator and have never had pizza! Funny!"), fortunately, the film gets past the more shallow fish-out-of-water jokes pretty quickly, moving to the more satisfying story of how these characters change each other.
Like many of the best sports films, the movie hits its stride as it parallels the personal trials of the characters with their professional journey. By the time the boys get to their final tryout, it represents far more than a mere shot at the big leagues for them and for J.B.
Million Dollar Arm is not perfect and it doesn't reach the giddy levels of enthusiasm that are found in Miracle, it's still a worthy entry into Disney's increasing catalog of sports films. There are so few entertainments that truly uplift and I'm happy to report that Million Dollar Arm does just that.
Grade - B
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