Eight Men Out (1988)
Grade: 87
"Eight Men Out" tells the story of the Black Sox scandal, the 1919 Chicago White Sox baseball team that threw that year's World Series. The film has the over-riding message that greed is the root of all evil: stingy owners, corrupt players, and cynical gamblers chase dollars, forfeiting their future for a brighter present. Only the sportswriters and the fans are honest.
The players' owner is Charles Comiskey (Clifton James). He is notoriously stingy, paying starvation wages, and welching on player bonuses. When the team reaches the World Series, the players are given flat champagne to celebrate. This fuels resentment among the players that makes them susceptible to the influence of gamblers.
There are several very interesting characters in "Eight Men Out." The kingpin gambler Arnold Rothstein (Michael Lerner) carries a chip on his shoulder against athletes. This is the result of ridicule he faced as a child when trying to play sports. He seeks revenge by fixing sports events and taking the profits, but no amount of money will satisfy his resentment.
Christoper Lloyd also plays a gambler, a former pitcher looking for a big score. For once his role is not eccentric. Once the fix is in, the gamblers get greedy and stop paying off the players. "It's all out on bets" is their favorite line.
Several of the Chicago players are in on the fix but play their best anyway, leaving it to starting pitcher Eddie Cicotte (David Straithairn) to throw the games. In the film, I count six World Series games that Eddie starts. Web research indicates that Lefty Williams pitched and lost three series games but is portrayed at that position in the film. Perhaps the two characters were essentially combined for dramatic purposes. Another inaccuracy is that the players are tried and suspended apparently during the offseason, when in fact they played much of the 1920 season.
The director focuses on one player in particular, and surprisingly it isn't Joe Jackson, the most famous of the Black Sox players. The spotlight is often on Buck Weaver (John Cusack) instead, perhaps because his character is more eloquent than the simpleton Jackson. Cusack has several scenes hanging with kid fans that don't seem completely credible.
Despite its minor weaknesses, "Eight Men Out" is an excellent film that demonstrates a love of baseball and the corruption of character that occurs with greed.
http://members.tripod.com/~Brian_Koller/movies.html
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews