Million Dollar Arm

I am still not interested in baseball

We start by sports agent JB (Jon Hamm) going through a tough time with his new firm, trying to sign his first big contract to drag his company out of the gutter. After his most recent play to get his next big contract fails, he comes up with a new strategy while drunkenly watching cricket (and Britain's Got Talent). He wants to be the first person to get someone from India signed to play professional baseball, by proxy getting the MLB a billion new potential viewers/costumers. When he goes over to India he starts a competition called "Million Dollar Arm" to try and get as many people as he can to show up. With a rocky start he finally finds two potential professional baseball players, Rinku (Suraj Sharma) and Dinesh (Madhur Mittal, also known as the two Indian actors with the greatest potential for greatness in Hollywood, more on that later). He also brings back a coach in training/translator, Amit (Pitobash). The boys have never left their small villages and are in for quite the culture shock when they come to America; as well as learning just how hard baseball really is.

The story line here is hard to gauge since this is all based on a true story. I can't necessarily call it crap since it really happened; but the execution of this powerful story line was a bit off.  Full disclosure, I absolutely hate baseball (I find it to be the most boring sport ever created, and that is saying a lot when golf/tennis is considered a "sport"), so it takes a lot for a movie to get me interested in something like this. I loved "Field of Dreams," "The Sandlot," and "Angels in the Outfield," I hated "Moneyball" there are a couple of home runs, mixed with a fair amount of strike outs (pun most definitely intended). This movie isn't a strike out, but it did get caught trying to slide to second. They should have dropped the the love angle with JB and Brenda, I didn't care about if they made it or not. They should have made it more about the boys, since they were the most interesting characters on the screen. I don't care about romance, I don't care about a retired baseball scout, and I don't care about JB learning how to open his heart to other people. I care about how the boys are feeling, and if they are acclimating to a more westernized society. The parts they did show of the boys, and their time getting to know America were to spaced out and not long enough. I know Disney can do better when it comes to these types of movies, but it seems that football movies are there field of expertise.

The actors in this were so-so. At least the American actors were. Bill Paxton and Alan Arkin always seem to play the same charters they always play, so if you liked Bill in "Twister" and Alan in "Grudge Match" you will like them here. The only experience I have with Jon Hamm's acting is seeing "The Town" (which he was good in) based on this performance I am going to say he needs to go back to doing more roles like that. I don't know why his voice took on this gravely effect (like he smokes two packs a day) when he is trying to pitch someone a deal. I don't know why he can't convey emotion properly, but he was way off his game here.  Lake Bell was good, among the American actors she had the best presence. Aasif Mandvi seemed to be the most enthused about having a career, so he did well too.

The Indian actors didn't really have to try that hard to sell their part. They were playing Indian native men coming to America for the first time, if they can't sell that, they need to choose another profession. This is the second movie I have seen with Suraj Sharma (the first being "Life of Pi") and based on both performances I want to see more from him, maybe in a bigger budget action role next time. The same goes for Madhur Mitttal (the first movie I saw him in was "Slumdog Millionaire"), except I would like to see him in a romantic comedy of some kind. The reason I was so specific on their future acting careers is because I want to see how much range they have. I don't really know how to gauge Pitobash since this is the first movie I have seen him in (which is weird since he has more accredited acting roles than the other two), but the awkward motivational speech he gave in this gives me hope for him.

The best part of this movie was the utter culture shock spoiled American viewers should feel after watching some key scenes from this movie (which is why I wanted more attention drawn to the Americanization of the boys). I know next to nothing about Indian culture, and can't comment on if they glorified the situation or not, but they did strike a cord with me. It's hard to imagine why JB didn't seem to understand that the boys would have a hard time adjusting to America, since he actually saw the village they came from.

Final Verdict: Netflix It It should be required viewing for people who have little appreciation of their lives in America, but there are plenty of other movies that show that. I can't say you should spend your money on this, but you should watch it if you have nothing better to do... or just watch one of the other baseball movies I mentioned.