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For Love Of The Game [2000]
from Universal Pictures UK
starring Kevin Costner, Kelly Preston, John C. Reilly, Jena Malone, Brian Cox
directed by Sam Raimi

Features:

• Anamorphic
• Dubbed
• PAL
• Widescreen

Editorial Review:

Billy Chapel (Kevin Costner) is having a bad day. His girlfriend Jane (Kelly Preston, stunning as ever) says she's leaving, and his boss (Brian Cox) says he's selling the business and ace employee Billy may be out of job. Sounds like business as usual for an old-fashioned veteran. However, the business is baseball and for Billy Chapel, the 40-year old former all-star for the Detroit Tigers, it means his career--and his life--is at a crossroads.

Although it is no Bull Durham, For Love of the Game finds a solid and very believable role for Costner. The film is based on Michael Shaara's (The Killer Angels) stream-of-consciousness novel (the rough manuscript was found after his death 1988). The entire film takes place on Billy's day on the mound against the Yankees, a meaningless late-season game for the Tigers, but everything for Billy. In flashbacks, he lingers over his long relationship with Jane and his baseball career (from World Series heroism to a career-threatening injury). His one viable link to the game at hand is his catcher, played winningly by John C. Reilly. Costner, like Chapel, is looking for one more great performance, but the film is too simplistic and loopy at times to resonate. The love story has an extra helping of cuteness, and legendary baseball announcer Vin Scully nearly takes on a leading role, waxing grandiloquent. It's no grand slam, but a solid double. --Doug Thomas, Amazon.com

Customer Reviews:

• Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0

• What's not to love?
  I love baseball, I love Costner sports movies and I love the Detroit Tigers.
  Guess what? I loved this film. Sure there are bits and pieces to quibble about (hence 4 stars rather than 5) but it's a good story that has been given a good treatment. It clearly shows the not so lovable side of sportsmen alongside all the great stuff, which I think is what makes it so compelling.
  I will be watching this film and enjoying it for many years.

• watch it and watch it again
  for love of the game is a true lovestory
  billy chapel a famous baseball player falls in love with jayne who also falls in love with him but jayne comes second in billys life baseball comes first

  it is mainly flashbacks of how they met and how billy treated jayne the end is perfect and just how i hoped

  a perfect film of romance if you however wanted to see the baseball i would not watch this if i were you only brief bits are shown

  a perfect performance from the cast espescially kevin costner... more info

• A Love Supreme !
  Ok, so Kevin Costner doesn't always make great movies but he always makes great BASEBALL movies ! "For Love Of The Game" will probably be the epitaph etched on Costner's headstone because he truly does love the game of Baseball ... and it shows.
  This is the third film in Costner's Baseball "Trilogy" and, like it's predecessors "Bull Durham" and "Field of Dreams" it demonstrates the actor's knowledge of and feeling for the subject matter. He was by all accounts a more than useful player in his youth and... more info

• Great study of selfishness
  This film is NOT about baseball, you could transplant it with any professional sport. Baseball works because it has plenty of time within the game that allow's Costners character to reflect on the passing of his professional career and how he has got to this point.

  The Flashbacks are done superbly, they start off rose-tinted but as the film progresses reality enters, showing what little regard he had for anyone around him, and he has to question "Was it worth it?"

  Sam Raimi has crafted a great film... more info

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