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Just perfect...

Excellent but underrated film

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

This is very much a baseball movie, in the sense that it plays out like baseball. It seems a lot longer than it really is, there's little emotion and there's not really a whole lot interesting that happens until near the end, just as the baseball season doesn't really get too interesting until August or maybe even September. The lack of emotion was what really surprised me in this. I mean, this should be a tug at your heartstrings type of story, but it's quite lacking for the most part in anything that would draw an emotional response from the viewer. Robert de Niro was pretty good as Bruce Pearson, a big league catcher who struggles through one last season after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. His good performance aside, though, we don't really see a lot of struggle. Yeah, there's a bit of a fight to keep him on the team, and star pitcher and Bruce's friend Henry Wiggen (Michael Moriarty) - who at first is the only one who knows Pearson's condition - has to fight to keep him on the team, finally ending a contract dispute only when the team agrees to keep Pearson. Once he's on though, for the most part the fight goes away. Pearson has a solid season - for him, great, because apparently he's never been that solid before. Until close to the end of the movie he never really seems sick, so even though you know what's going on, there's a certain lack of empathy for the character. This final season just seems to play out too nonchalantly. Moriarty was OK as Wiggen, and this certainly gave us a look at a different era in baseball - before free agency and big buck contracts, even a star like Wiggen has to sell insurance on the side to make a living. Vincent Gardenia I thought was a strange decision to play the manager, and he didn't really feel right in the part. The ending was well done. Pearson finally does get sick and leaves the team before the World Series, which they apparently won, but none of that is portrayed - which was appropriate, since the movie wasn't about the team and whether or not it won, but about Pearson.I thought that as a drama, the movie could have gone for more emotion, and I've seen far better baseball movies (right off the top of my head I'd cite "Pride of the Yankees," "Eight Men Out" and "For Love Of The Game.") This one has its moments and it does a decent job of portraying the struggles of the baseball season as this apparently very talented team sort of meanders through the season without really generating any chemistry or putting it all together until the end. Still, I didn't find myself getting too excited about it.

Bang the Drum Slowly (1973) *** 1/2 (out of 4) Depressing but eventually uplifting tale of a star pitcher (Michael Moriarty) who befriends a dimwitted catcher (Robert DeNiro) who is dying. The thought of watching someone dying from a terminal illness might keep some people away from this movie but that would be a real shame because the film does a beautiful job of teaching about how we should treat people. This film certainly deals with the topic of death but it also deals with the spirit of life and it also works very well as a baseball movie. I don't think the film gets enough credit for how it handles the story of a middle ground player who must work extra hard to just try and compete with the bigger guys. DeNiro's character isn't the most talented but seeing him work hard to get where he wants is something very uplifting and this is especially true considering how sick and near death his character is. DeNiro gives a wonderful performance and really nails this character's Southern accent and mentality. There's been plenty of talk about DeNiro working out with the Cincinnati Reds in order to make himself look like a baseball player and he also succeeds on this level. You can't help but watch him and see a real struggling player. His scenes dealing with the disease are also extremely well acted and incredibly touching. Moriarty never gets the credit he deserves but he too delivers a great performance. There are many scenes where he doesn't have too much to say yet we can see how he feels just by looking at his eyes. Vincent Gardenia plays the third angle of this story, the two men's manager. I've seen quite a bit of Gardenia's work but this here is certainly the best of that. He gives an extremely heartfelt performance not only during the sadder moments but also the anger moments of a manager trying to keep his team together. In the end I think a few things are a bit too heavily handled but there's still a great story here with a real message. The most interesting scenes in the film are when DeNiro's character is being picked on by his teammates yet they change after they learn he's dying. The message of treating people good because you don't know if they really are dying gives one something to think about.

Robert DeNiro looked so young in this picture I hardly recognized him and the role he played is unbelievable. This is however, a good baseball film with many veteran actors giving great supporting roles. In this picture Bruce Pearson, (DeNiro) plays the role of a simple minded catcher who was made fun of by all of the team players except one guy, Henry Wiggen, (Michael Moriarty) who stood by Bruce and gave him all the moral support and good advice to deal with his situation. It seems when the players got off of Bruce's back, he was able to hit home runs and had more pep as a catcher. Henry brings Bruce to the Mayo Clinic in Minneapolis and there was bad news for poor Bruce. Henry agreed not to tell anyone about the findings at the clinic and this is when the story gets funny at times and it hits a rather sad note. Entertaining film and great to see DeNiro just starting a great career on the silver screen. Enjoy

Finally watched this film. First of all the story is a good one though the manner in which it is fleshed out is a bit too limp for my tastes. There are opportunities for more sparks and tension but they are avoided. Of course de Niro is at the beginning of a tremendous career and we get the glimpses of his genius. His portrayal of a dim witted country bumpkin is quite enjoyable and believable. His predilection for gobs and blobs of sticky chewing tobacco just make you cringe but the gag is used to color his character. I enjoyed the way in which their top pitcher, played by Michael Moriarity, takes pity on his dying buddy and does whatever he can to protect him from being isolated. While no one can explain de Niro's characters sudden self confidence and above average abilities, the audience knows that it is because he has been encouraged to feel better about himself and that is the gift of his protective pitcher friend. The socializing scenes of the players sitting down to play a knucklehead game of cards (with ad hoc rules) is funny but it wears thin after watching a few times. The coach reminds me of Zero Mostel but on a much reduced scale. Shame they didn't get Mostel to do the role as he would have added the extra manic energy that would have made his character truly hilarious.There was much more this film could have done but the entire movie seems to me shot in too soft shades with none of the serious tensions that surely erupt between hard driven major league players. Moriarity's character is just too sweet for the role and after a while I lost the ability to believe in him and frankly was put off by all the smiles and good boy looks. Give me a break. This is a film that needs to be remade with a much harder tone and edge to it. I can imagine Sean Penn playing the dying catcher. I can imagine someone like Damien Lewis as the pitcher, Ron Livingston as first base (both did so well in Band of Brothers). As a matter of fact, so many of those guys on that film would be excellent in a remake. Oh well, such are my dreams. Not a bad film but not a great one by any standards. I think that "A league of their own" is by far a much better film on any level. "Fields of dreams" is another and there are many finer baseball films out there.