Hardball

Another Hollywood triumph of the underdog tale, an unlikely gambler finds redemption by coaching an inner city junior baseball team. Reeves is in deep with the bookies until a lawyer pal pays him to supervise the Cabrini Green Little Leaguers. The guy's just there to collect the cash, until, that is, the spirit of the kids and their daily battle to survive Chicago's toughest patch start to put his own fecklessness in perspective. Predictable, of course, and the blend of training high-jinks, urban deprivation and perfunctory romantic asides is synthetically neat. The film avoids becoming total schmaltz, however, by refusing to pretend that success at baseball is the end of everyone's problems. It always keeps one foot in the grim realities of ghetto gun culture. And the eager youngsters, it should be said, act Keanu out of the park.