REVIEW: “Million Dollar Arm” knocks it out of the park
By Thomas Oide,
Bluedevilhub.com Staff–
Over the years, Disney films have become synonymous with excellence.
This time, Disney has hit it big again with “Million Dollar Arm”, a true story of a struggling sports agent and two young men from India on their journey to become professional pitchers.
Jon Hamm plays J.B. Bernstein, a down-on-his-luck, single sports agent who is steadily losing the funds to run his business, Seven Figure Sports. The movie opens with a deal with a star linebacker in the NFL (current Cincinnati Bengals linebacker Rey Maualuga) falling through for Bernstein, which leads him to try one more last ditch effort to save his job.
Bernstein heads to India, one of the untapped markets in the world of sports, in search of cricket bowlers (the players who throw the ball) in order to turn them into baseball pitchers.
Bernstein turns his search into a competition called “Million Dollar Arm.” The rules are simple: whoever throws the baseball the fastest wins a competition.
Bernstein finds his two pitchers to take back to America: Rinku Singh (Suraj Sharma) and Dinesh Kumar Patel (Madhur Mittal).
Just like any other Disney movie the pitchers have their ups and downs, making the viewer ask themselves, “Are they going to make it?”
With such a serious storyline, it would be hard to envision where humor could come into play in “Million Dollar Arm.” However director Craig Gillispie interweaves lots of humor into the movie largely due to a way-too-overenthusiastic assistant named Amit (Pitobash Tripathy), whose dream in life is to coach baseball. Amit repeats his signature line, “Um, Mr. J.B. sir,” throughout the movie
While the main plot follows Bernstein, Singh and Kumar Patel, it wouldn’t be a Disney movie without some sort of romantic subplot.
Bernstein rents out a smaller house in his backyard to a doctor named Brenda Fernwick (Lake Bell). As the story continues, Bernstein and Fernwick’s relationship grows and develops, and Fernwick plays a key role in unlocking the pitchers’ potential.
Overall, Disney and Grantland editor-in-chief/executive producer/ESPN analyst Bill Simmons have again knocked yet another movie out of the park. What more can you expect?
