Film Review: Major League

Director: David S. Ward

A 1989 American comedy about a major league baseball team and a bunch of misfit players who end up on their roster. The film featured an impressive cast at the time of Charlie Sheen, Wesley Snipes and Tom Berenger to name just three. Although the film is based around the Cleveland Indians it is an entirely fictionalized set of events.

Ricky Vaughn nicknamed 'Wild Thing' (Charlie Sheen)

Rachel Phelps (Margaret Whitton) inherits the Cleveland Indians from her deceased husband and decides that she wants the team to tank the season so that she can move the team to Miami because its warmer and the city will build them a new stadium (quite apt considering the recent events with the Marlins). She makes the General Manager assemble a poor roster of old players passed their prime and young players from her list who all have major flaws in their game whether it be the inability to feed, hit curveballs or throw anything but fastballs.

Another film that set the trend for films to come, the storyline of a team of misfit players being thrown together but suddenly improving and winning has been well used but this is a film that was one of the first to do so. Leading the way for many films to follow like The Replacements and The Mighty Ducks franchise. Charlie Sheen is comfortably at home playing a wild pitcher with an even wilder temper and Wesley Snipes is superb as Willie Mays who turns up uninvited to training camp but impresses with his quick speed.

The Cleveland Indians team

Its a very watchable film but is actually more an underdog sports story than a comedy film for the most part, there are certainly laughs to be had here but it doesn't offer up quite as many jokes as comedies seem to these days. Maybe that's a good thing considering how poor comedies have been of late. The sidestory about Jake Taylor (Tom Berenger) trying to patch it up with his ex-wife was a cliché story arc that certainly wasn't new at the time, unfortunately this takes up too much time in the movie but this aside its a light hearted enjoyable film.

2.5/4 Funny enjoyable comedy