''Hardball'' is a 2001 American

sports drama A sports film is a film genre in which any particular sport plays a prominent role in the film's plot or acts as its central theme. It is a production in which a sport, sporting event, athlete (and their sport), or follower of sport (and the sp ...

comedy film A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending (black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the ol ...

directed by

Brian Robbins Brian Levine (born November 22, 1963), known professionally as Brian Robbins, is an American film executive, actor, and filmmaker who is the current President and Chief Executive Officer of Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon. He also serves as Ch ...

and starring Keanu Reeves in the main role,

Diane Lane Diane Colleen Lane (born January 22, 1965) is an American actress. Born and raised in New York City, Lane made her screen debut at age 14 in George Roy Hill's 1979 film ''A Little Romance''. The two films that could have catapulted her to star ...

and

D. B. Sweeney Daniel Bernard Sweeney (born November 14, 1961) is an American actor. Early life Sweeney was born in Shoreham, New York, on November 14, 1961. He attended both Tulane and New York University. Career In 1990, Sweeney starred as Treplev in Jeff Co ...

. The screenplay by John Gatins is based on the book ''Hardball: A Season in the Projects'' by Daniel Coyle. The original music score is composed by

Mark Isham Mark Ware Isham (born September 7, 1951) is an American musician and film composer. A trumpeter and keyboardist, Isham works in a variety of genres, including jazz and electronic. He is also a film composer, having worked on numerous films and ...

. The film was released on September 14, 2001, topping the box office the weekend after the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...

Plot

Conor O'Neill is a gambler who secretly bets $6,000 on his dead father's account and is now severely in debt with two bookies. In order to repay the debts, he is told by a corporate friend that he must coach a

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 ...

team of troubled African-American fifth grade kids from Chicago's

ABLA Abla is a municipality, former bishopric and Latin Catholic titular see in Almería province, in Andalusia, southeast Spain. History It is considered to be the Abula mentioned by Ptolemy in his ''Geographia'' (II 6, 60) as located in the Iber ...

housing projects in exchange for $500 each week, for ten weeks. Worried only about getting his $500 check, Conor shows up at the baseball field to a rag tag bunch of trash-talking, street-wise, inner city kids who live in the projects. Some of the players include: Andre Ray Peetes, a smart-mouthed jokester, captain of the team who knows about all the players and forms a strong bond with Conor; Kofi Evans, a troubled, angry boy who has a rivalry with Andre, a quick temper, but is the best player on the team; Jefferson Albert Tibbs, a sweet, overweight, asthmatic player; Jamal, Andre's best friend and the oldest on the team; Miles Penfield II, the brilliant pitcher who listens to

The Notorious B.I.G. Christopher George Latore Wallace (May 21, 1972 – March 9, 1997), better known by his stage names the Notorious B.I.G., Biggie Smalls, or simply Biggie, was an American rapper. Rooted in East Coast hip hop and particularly gangsta ...

’s

Big Poppa "Big Poppa" is a song by American rapper The Notorious B.I.G. It was released as the second single from his first studio album '' Ready to Die''. It features a sample of the song, " Between the Sheets" written by The Isley Brothers. "Big Poppa" w ...

to pitch well; and Jarius "G-Baby" Evans, Kofi's much younger brother who is too young to play so he becomes Conor's assistant. Conor's efforts are hindered from the onset by the fact that he does not have nine kids to make up the team—Jamal’s mother altered his birth certificate to be younger and G-Baby is sad because he is far too young to play. The older kids tell Conor it is because their teacher, Elizabeth "Sister" Wilkes, is making several boys finish a book report. Conor visits the teacher, but his life is threatened repeatedly by his bookies for not paying his gambling debts. He is visited by the mother of two boys and her sister's son that are allowed to play in exchange for him tutoring them. Conor works to get the team to support each other and stop trash-talking each other's bad plays; but the team nevertheless loses its first game 16–1, which fosters hostility between the players. Conor brings them together by buying them pizza (trading sports tickets for the pizza) and leads the team to win their second game 9–3. The team starts to come together as Conor tries to kindle a romance with Wilkes. Conor risks everything and makes a $12,000 bet with a new bookie to cover the $12,000 debt he owes to the other bookies. His stress, already high from his gambling debts, runs higher at the baseball field because Jamal is pulled from playing after a competing coach questions the boy's age and Myles can't wear headphones while he pitches. Conor takes offense to the league president's threat to be removed, after he voices his objection to his team having to wear ratty T-shirts while the other teams have full uniforms. In protest, he announces it was his last game which draws dissension and resentment from his players. Conor barely wins his $12,000 bet, pays off all his debts, and refuses to turn that bet for $24,000 using the winnings. Conor connects with the kids and finds it harder to leave than he thought. He surprises them with second row seats (behind Sammy Sosa's dugout) to a major league game. He stops gambling; his relationship with Wilkes grows; he gets new uniforms for the players (sponsored by one of his bookies); and he assumes a fatherly role in leading the team to the championship game (called "going to the 'ship" by the boys). Just after Conor drops the kids off at home after winning the pre-championship game, G-Baby is struck and killed by a stray bullet and Kofi has to hold him as he dies. Conor wants to forfeit the game, but Andre and especially Kofi, rallies the team together. The end credits show the kids finally getting the trophies they wanted after winning the championship.

Cast

Music

Soundtrack

A soundtrack containing hip hop and R&B music was released on

September 11, 2001 The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerc ...

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Sony. It was founded on Janua ...

. It peaked at #55 on the ''Billboard'' 200 and #34 on the

Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums is a music chart published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine that ranks R&B and hip hop albums based on sales in the United States and is compiled by Nielsen SoundScan. The chart debuted as Hot R&B LPs in the issue dated J ...

Reception

Box office

The film topped the box office by grossing $10.1 million on its opening weekend, which came shortly after the

. Worldwide it grossed $44.1 million The film at No. 2 at the box office that weekend was '' The Glass House'' which also starred

Critical response

On review aggregation website

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 holds an approval rating of 41% based on 113 reviews, with an average rating of 4.72/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Although ''Hardball'' contains some touching moments, they are not enough to transcend the sports formula." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, the film has a weighted average score of 48 out of 100, based on 25 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by

CinemaScore CinemaScore is a market research firm based in Las Vegas. It surveys film audiences to rate their viewing experiences with letter grades, reports the results, and forecasts box office receipts based on the data. Background Ed Mintz founded Ci ...

gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.

References

External links

* * * * {{Brian Robbins 2001 films 2000s sports drama films American sports comedy-drama films American baseball films Hood films Paramount Pictures films Films directed by Brian Robbins Fireworks Entertainment films Films scored by Mark Isham Films with screenplays by John Gatins Films about alcoholism Films shot in Detroit Impact of the September 11 attacks on cinema 2000s English-language films 2000s American films