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    This movie is about what I expected when I walked into the theater.   The trailers set up the story, old baseball player must choose between the game he loves and the woman he loves.  Well, I hope I'm not giving anything away, but guess which one he picks.  Of course he picks the girl!!!  Hmm, a game where you're a has been or Kelly Preston?  Tough question I'm sure.

   Ok, so it's predictable.  What else about it?  Well, the acting was decent enough.  I don't think there are any Oscar worthy performances here but that's mostly the fault of the dialogue.  Not only is the story predictable, but many of the lines are.  The movie is full of cliché scenes. 

   Another point, the movie is slow and is almost 2 and a half hours long.  With that under its belt you think it would have a lot of in depth development of characters and story.  It does in a few areas but overall I'd say it's lacking.   For example, the writers do a good job of providing motives for Kelly Preston and Kevin Costner.  The audience is introduced to a lot of their past so you can understand why they act the way they do.  However,  good supporting characters such as Gus, played by John C. Reilly is really lacking.  A few one on one scenes between he and Costner are thrown in and they have potential but don't deliver.

   I must give director Sam Raimi, whom you might remember from Indian Summer as Stick, on his few creative touches that added more life to this semi-dead script.  The cutting between present and past was nice, although confusing at times.   I liked the use of old home videos to show flashbacks, even though it's not a new technique and I've seen it used better.  I especially liked when Kevin Costner would concentrate before a pitch and audience noise faded and the crowd blurred in his vision.   I thought it was a good way to pull the viewers into Billy Chapel's (Kevin Costner) train of thought.

   The chemistry between the two leads isn't Julia Roberts and Richard Gere, but it's not Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis either.  They do alright on screen together and came off as believable real life people.  Their characters were explored much more in depth and the good acting really made the audience empathize.

   However, because only these two were explored and the rest were left hanging, and the story and dialogue are predictable, and the movie is kinda slow, it only earns a 2.5 .