(rated PG -13, 106 mins)
Based on Daniel Coyle’s 1993 memoir of coaching Little League baseball in Chicago’s Cabrini-Green housing project, comes the story of a desperate gambler Conor O’Neill (Keanu Reeves), who agrees not by choice, to step up to the plate when he owes money. The deal is orchestrated as such that as long as he coaches a little league team, the loan shark will stay at bay. While coaching should change the children’s lives, somehow it has a miraculous effect on him. The story provides spiritual double duty as Conor finds his redeeming qualities, discovering that money isn’t everything, while the kids learn there is more to life than drugs and guns. Diane Lane portrays a tough-cookie schoolteacher who recognizes the potential in the union of the kids and coach. Director Brian Robbins (off his sports hit “Varsity Blues”) does a smart thing with shying away from the typical white boy saves the ghetto approach. Instead, Conor has his own set of issues that will keep adults interested in the story as well as sell a teen audience with its rough edge. Reeves shows the same spine displayed in “Feeling Minnesota” and “The Devil’s Advocate”. The movies largest flaw will come from its misleading PG-13 rating originally slated for an R, in which the title somehow seems to direct itself to the language coming out of the kid’s mouths on the mound.