Home Run Showdown Blu-ray delivers great video and decent audio in this enjoyable Blu-ray release
Two little league teams take on their coaches' sibling rivalry, and end up doing battle in a place the baseball world never expected it: in the outfield of the Home Run Derby.
For more about Home Run Showdown and the Home Run Showdown Blu-ray release, see the Home Run Showdown Blu-ray Review published by Michael Reuben on August 30, 2012 where this Blu-ray release scored 3.5 out of 5.
If you take all of the bad behavior out of the Little League team in The Bad News Bears and shift
it to the adults, you get something like Home Run Showdown, a family-friendly movie from Oz
Scott, a thirty-year veteran of television (with the occasional feature) for whom craftsmanship is
second nature and whose 2004 DGA nomination for directing The Cheetah Girls on the Disney
Channel certified his credentials as a maker of kid entertainment. In the wild 'n' crazy Seventies,
when Bad News Bears was released, a pre-pubescenet Tatum O'Neal could talk about going on
the pill and stake her virginity on a game of air hockey against a teenage Jackie Earle Haley. No
such potentially offensive hijinks intrude in the script by first time writers John Bella and Tim
Cavanaugh. Yes, they do include a female player on their team of Little League misfits, but she's
pure tomboy, with the temper to match. When she wants to recruit a hotshot to join their ranks,
she beats him at soccer. Sex is never mentioned.
The kids' conflicts provide more than a few laughs, but they're really just counterpoint for the
film's main plot, which is a sibling rivalry carried into adulthood between two brothers, both of
whom tried their luck as professional ball players. Now returned to their home town in Michigan,
they battle constantly until their exasperated father, in a last-ditch effort to end the war,
challenges them to a duel as rival Little League coaches. The variation from the usual sports film
cliche is that the winner won't be decided by a championship Big Game. It'll be determined by
which team shags the most balls at the annual Home Run Championship, an exhibition event
where select players from Little League teams get to stand in the outfield of a real baseball
stadium and field balls that are hit by pro players trying for home runs. The team that shags the
most balls wins, and the player who hits the most balls over the fence is awarded an honorary
title. It's a camera-friendly notion with visual rivalries already built in, and director Scott makes
the most of it.
Joey and Rico Deluca (Matthew Lillard and Dean Cain) are two brothers who look nothing alike,
and neither resembles their laidback father, Big Al (Barry Bostwick), who owns a
baseball-themed cafe, where his old friend, The Admiral (Mike Evans), can always be found
propping up the bar. As kids the brothers were inseparable, but as adults they can't come within
sight of each other without taunts and insults. Rico, the elder, is a local hero, because he played
ball in the majors. Joey never made it past the minors, and he has a vaguely dangerous reputation,
with rumors of a violent past.
The local Little League is overseen by Commissioner Simpson (Wayne Duvall), who clearly
loves any job that is accompanied by a title and a rule book. The program has funding for seven
teams, and the top-ranked three win the right to send players to the Home Run Showdown, which
this year is being held in Detroit. However, only six adults are available as coaches, one of them
being Rico. Tryouts are held, and a number of promising players have to be cut from the league,
including Lori (Kyle Kirk), a talented kid who's desperate to make it to the Home Run
Showdown for personal reasons related to the absent father about whom he tells everyone a
different story.
Some of the other rejects also show promise. They include Fassi (Emma-Lee Hess), whose skills
are unquestionable, but she's cut solely because the sexist commissioner doesn't want her taking
one of the boys' spots; and Tanker (Brandon Balog), a tough but overweight kid, with a not-so-tough but overprotective single mother, Michelle
(Annabeth Gish, a name actress: love interest
alert!). If only this motley crew could find a coach, what a team they might make. Of course they
do, after the typical coincidences, guilt trips and "oh no, I couldn't possibly" moments on the part
of Joey Deluca, who's been trying to avoid his rendezvous with Baseball Destiny for years. For
those who care about this sort of thing, Joey's turning point comes as a result of a passionate
debate over the infamous "infield fly" rule.
Afficionados of baseball films may hear a distant echo of The
Natural when Big Al puts up his
cafe as the stakes in a contest between his two sons over the Home Run Showdown. He'll sign
over the place to the coach of whichever team shags the most balls. Since Rico's team, the Red
Sox, has won the League championship every year since he's been their coach, he's guaranteed a
spot at the main event. Joey will have to drag his Cubs (mocked by the other side as "Scrubs")
out of last place to at least number three, then beat Rico's team at the Showdown. The
competition is on.
The battle between the Cubs and the Sox has some entertaining moments, spiced up by a couple
of moppet Howard Cosells doing podcasts, Dave (Joshua Saba), who is Fassi's younger brother,
and Felicia Lee (Kaleigh Ryan). Their impressions are so thick, and Dave's teeth are in such a
transitional phase, that the commentary is frequently unintelligible, but who cares? The humor
comes from their intense seriousness, and while the gimmick of having children mimic adult
behavior may be a stock routine, it always works in situations where adults are guaranteed to
behave like children. Sports, anyone?
Some of the vignettes are more than just comic filler. In one of the Cubs' early games, they're
being shut out by an intimidating pitcher with a vicious fast ball. Coach Joey teaches them all a
simple but essential lesson about keeping your eyes on the ball (though not in the usual sense),
and they win the game. The incident could serve as the basis for a genuine parent-child
discussion of flash vs. substance.
The Bad News Bears ended humorously but with serious subtext about what it really means to be
a winner, and Home Run Showdown asks some of the same questions. As for whether the
Brothers Deluca make Big Al happy by settling their differences, yes and no. Like too many
grown men, they lack the humility to apologize or the confidence to express their feelings
directly. Fortunately for these fraternal rivals, as for so many who have come before them,
baseball provides a common language, and a bar can be neutral territory.
According to both the credits and IMDb, Home Run Showdown was shot on film, with post-production accomplished on a digital
intermediate. The cinematographer was David Stockton,
whose recent credits include the TV series Alcatraz. The image on Image Entertainment's 1080p,
AVC-encoded Blu-ray is clean and detailed with the almost invisible grain structure (in most
shots) that is characteristic of DI-completed projects. Still, the origination on film is detectable in
softer textures and less severe edges that nicely complement the pastoral settings. (If the late
George Carlin were still performing his famous routine comparing baseball and football, he'd
probably say that baseball is analog, while football is digital.) Black levels and contrast are set
appropriately, and colors are varied, natural and never oversaturated. Home Run Showdown had a
limited theatrical run, in which it would have been projected at 1.85:1, but the image on the Blu-ray has been framed at 1.78:1.
With no extras and only a single lossless soundtrack, a BD-25 accommodates the 94-minute film
without compression issues.
The film's DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack is pleasant but average, with clearly rendered dialogue
and a nice sense of ambiance in various environments, but it's otherwise a slight affair. Elaborate
surround effects would overwhelm this small-scale movie, which needs to remain true to its
modest ambitions. The charming score by Austin Wintory (The River Why), who is becoming
something of a fixture on the independent scene, is well-presented, as is the song "All Right
Day", co-written and performed by Bill Cantos, which opens and closes the film.
A script like Home Run Showdown could easily have turned preachy or maudlin, but Oz Scott
has been directing TV since The Jeffersons, and as eminent directors including John
Frankenheimer and Sidney Pollack have often said, TV requires a director to be a disciplined craftsman. Oz
keeps his pacing tight and his scenes lean, and he knows how to move a story forward efficiently.
His reputation was no doubt a significant draw for talent with the name recognition of Dean Cain (with whom
Oz had worked on Lois and Clark) and Matthew Lillard, whose face still has the goofball quality
that makes him ideal for comedy but has now acquired enough mileage to express serious
emotions like regret and remorse. Home Run Showdown is a minor work, but it was made by
professionals, and that's always a valuable find in family entertainment. Recommended.
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