Product Description
She’s gorgeous, smart, goal-oriented, and she just inherited the Cleveland Indians. Unfortunately, she wants to go the franchise to Miami, and a losing season is her only ticket to Florida. So she signs the wildest gang of screwballs that ever spit tobacco. They’re handsome, but they’re hopeless! Her catcher (Tom Berenger) is a washed-up womanizer who struck out in life. Her ace pitcher (Charlie Sheen) is a punked-out crazy who struck out with the law. And her th… More >>
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-- Candice K.
December 16th, 2009 at 10:27 am
The movie, a fictitious baseball tale based on the real-life Cleveland Indians baseball team, is a small outdated.
When it was made in 1989, the Cleveland Indians, playing their home baseball games in a cavernous football stadium that had the capacity to house many fans but drew so few of them, were probably the epitome of baseball mediocrity and a very likely choice for a movie about a Cinderella-like baseball team.
But Chief Wahoo’s followers have since gotten themselves an brilliant new downtown stadium. They’ve fallen on hard times again, but during the 1990′s, they really distinguished themselves as an American League powerhouse. They came within 3 outs of winning a World Championship in 1997.
This movie predates that or perhaps it anticipates the rebirth of the Indians, but beyond that, there’s small to be said on its behalf.
Take the greatest game in the world, baseball, and the greatest philosophy in the world, misogyny, and you appear to have an unbeatable combination for a movie. But unfortunately, such is not the case here.
Oh yes, one can nod his head knowingly and agree that that’s just what they’re all like as the Indians’ distaff owner (her character seems loosely based on Georgia Frontierre, owner of the Los Angeles/Anaheim/St. Louis Rams FOOTBALL team) tries to unman the dozens of hardworking baseball players who have too much pride to lose on schedule for her.
And there’s some entertainment value in watching the lads get back at the dominatrix – defying her by continuing to win ballgames, as a photographic replica of her is stripped of clothing after each victory.
All that is fine, but basically the plot is so shallow that even the saving graces of baseball and misogyny can’t really rescue it.
If you have any familiarity with baseball or sports movies, you won’t be surprised by a single twist in plot that takes place during this movie – not a single one. The plot twists have all the deceptiveness of a hanging curve ball and are as simple to read in advance.
In fact, if you have a grain of intelligence, I promise you that when you watch the movie for the first time, you’ll have no problem guessing exactly – I said EXACTLY – how the movie ends. You’re not SUPPOSED to be able to guess, but I guarantee that you will. That’s how small imagination was exercised by the creators.
And of course, the creators didn’t even MEAN to make a misogynistic movie to start with. This was one of Rene Russo’s earlier movies, in which she started to establish her typecasted reputation as one of those disgusting “gal pals” (yeah right, like a man can really be FRIENDS with the woman that he’s sleeping with!).
Russo, as Tom Berenger’s athletic girlfriend, is supposed to counterbalance the evil presented by Margaret Whitton.
But Russo’s dramatic presence in this film is less than what was probably intended. Her “goodness” (assuming that one feels that a female athlete can properly represent the forces of “excellent”) really casts a very thin shadow on this film and doesn’t at all compare to Whitton’s evil. So the movie is at least realistic in this respect.
This movie is also an early Charlie Sheen effort, in which he stars as the hip closing relief pitcher Rick Vaughn, the “Wild Thing”. This character would later metamorphose into real-life National League closer Mitch Williams (Cubs, Phillies), who was known for being wildly effective (usually) in a way that would terrify his own fans.
In this movie, Vaughn’s theme song, of course, is the rock-and-roll classic “Wild Thing”, but instead of using the ancient Trogs sound-track for this purpose, the movie-makers have some all-girl group singing instead.
Now, does that make any sense? To have an all-girl group sing (as the Trogs did), “Wild Thing, you make my thing swing”?
No, the film-makers didn’t TRY to make a misogynistic movie, but bless their hearts, they made one anyway. It is, after all (heh-heh), the tale and not he who tells it, and commendations are in order for this accidental virtue.
James Gammons’s reassuring masculine presence as the embattled Indians manager is another saving grace, and trivia buffs will also be interested in the presence of a younger Wesley Snipes.
Baseball! Misogyny! Familiar faces! And yet the movie STILL doesn’t satisfy. I’ll probably never find out if the sequel was an improvement.
Rating: 2 / 5
December 16th, 2009 at 11:25 am
How can any self-respecting baseball fan say they really LIKE this movie? It doesn’t respect the game. It’s an insult to the intelligence of anyone who watches it, and downright scandalous in light of 2 terrifically realistic movies (“Bull Durham” and “Field of Dreams”) from about the same time. If you want slapstick pratfalls and sophomoric humor, there are lots of better places to go. If you want baseball, stay away from this one.
Rating: 1 / 5
December 16th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
It was very excellent. It is one the kids would delight in.
Rating: 3 / 5
December 16th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
Major League was way too predictable from beginning to end. Though it had a fantastic cast, I would really call it “amusing amusing” because I didn’t laugh much. But, it was in no part dull and I watched it without stopping once. The point is…baseball players who are horrible is not my thought of really really amusing, like everyone else said. It’s also not my kind of Weslet Snipes’s movie, comparing it to Blade and the other movies he has starred in. I suggest you rent it first. If you like it, buy it. If you don’t, then plainly return it the first day you got it and don’t see the sequel. By the way…Major League 3: Back to the Minors has the complete same tale and jokes so if you see any of the sequels first don’t expect anything new in the original. I give it three stars.
Time: 105 minutes.
Rated R for strong language, brief rear nudity, and crude humor.
Rating: 3 / 5
December 16th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
Fun movie about baseball players who get a second/last chance. It’s not Shakespeare, but who cares?
Rating: 5 / 5