''American Pastime'' is a 2007 fictional film set in the

Topaz War Relocation Center The Topaz War Relocation Center, also known as the Central Utah Relocation Center (Topaz) and briefly as the Abraham Relocation Center, was an American concentration camp which housed Americans of Japanese descent and immigrants who had come t ...

, a

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

prison camp which held thousands of people during the

internment of Japanese Americans Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. While the film is a dramatic narrative, it is based on true events and depicts life inside the internment camps, where baseball was one of the major diversions from the reality of the internees' lives. Producer Kerry Yo Nakagawa has said that a particular inspiration was

Kenichi Zenimura Kenichi Zenimura (January 25, 1900 – November 13, 1968) was a Japanese-American baseball player, manager, and promoter. He had a long career with semiprofessional Japanese-American baseball leagues in the western United States and Hawaii; these ...

and his family's experience at the

Gila River War Relocation Center The Gila River War Relocation Center was an American concentration camp in Arizona, one of several built by the War Relocation Authority (WRA) during the Second World War for the incarceration of Japanese Americans from the West Coast. It was lo ...

, where Zenimura led the construction of a baseball field and of a league of internee baseball teams that played there. Location scenes were filmed in bleak, desolate land, not far from the site of the actual internment camp.

Plot

The first scene shows the life of the Nomura family, a typical American family of

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

descent in 1941, composed of Japanese-born parents and American-born children (in this case, two sons, Lane and Lyle). They are forced to leave their home in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

following the infamous Executive Order 9066, signed by

Franklin Delano Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

. Order 9066 permitted the "exclusion" of Japanese Americans from the

West Coast of the United States The West Coast of the United States, also known as the Pacific Coast, Pacific states, and the western seaboard, is the coastline along which the Western United States meets the North Pacific Ocean. The term typically refers to the contiguous U.S ...

, and actual historic footage shows the rounding up of these families, most of whom were (like the Nomura sons) born as American citizens. The Nomuras find themselves in a dusty, windblown desert camp. The viewer sees some actual footage of Topaz War Relocation Center, shot by

Dave Tatsuno Dave Tatsuno (born Masaharu Tatsuno August 18, 1913 – January 26, 2006, in California) was a Japanese American businessman who documented life in his family's internment camp during World War II. His footage was later compiled into the film ...

, using a camera which had been smuggled into the camp. The elder Nomura had been a professional

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

player, and he rapidly forms an in-camp league. One of the guards, Billy Burrell (

Gary Cole Gary Michael Cole (born September 20, 1956) is an American television, film and voice actor. Cole began his professional acting career on stage at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company in 1985. On television, he has had starring roles in the ...

) is a minor-league baseball player, bitter about having been passed over by a recruiter from the

New York Yankees The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Amer ...

. Many of the major leagues' top players were off to war, perhaps giving Burrell another opportunity with the Yankees. Lane Nomura, the oldest son enlists in the Army, as a member of the

442nd Regimental Combat Team The 442nd Infantry Regiment ( ja, 第442歩兵連隊) was an infantry regiment of the United States Army. The regiment is best known as the most decorated in U.S. military history and as a fighting unit composed almost entirely of second-gene ...

, the famed "Purple Heart Battalion". One guard, originally condemning the very idea of letting Japanese Americans into "our Army", changes his mind as he sees a list of men from Topaz who had been killed while rescuing a Texas battalion. Lyle, the younger son, originally angry and rebellious over the internment, eventually finds motivation to succeed when the Topaz team challenges Burrell and the local minor league team, several of whose members are openly bigoted and hateful against the internees.

Reception

On review aggregator

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

the film has a score of 33% based on reviews from 9 critics, with an average 5.4/10 rating. Jeff Vice of ''

Deseret News The ''Deseret News'' () is the oldest continuously operating publication in the American west. Its multi-platform products feature journalism and commentary across the fields of politics, culture, family life, faith, sports, and entertainment. Th ...

'' wrote "The historical elements -- particularly those that deal with Japanese internment camps during World War II -- definitely make the movie worthwhile".

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:American Pastime (Film) 2007 films American sports drama films 2000s sports drama films American baseball films Films shot in Utah Films about the internment of Japanese Americans 2007 drama films 2000s English-language films 2000s American films

Plot

Reception

References

Further reading

External links