'Million Dollar Arm' keeps the audience engaged despite its predictability
Predictable isn鈥檛 the worst thing a movie can be. Predictable can be聽comforting. What it can鈥檛 be is boring. 鈥淢illion Dollar Arm,鈥� based on聽true events, did a fairly good job of keeping me engaged even though I聽knew exactly where it was going every step of the way.
It鈥檚 about J.B. Bernstein (Jon Hamm), an L.A. sports agent who, after聽making a fortune with a high-powered agency, is struggling on his own.聽Then he has a brainstorm: Recruit the best cricket bowlers (i.e., pitchers)聽from India and bring them into Major League baseball. He organizes聽the 鈥淢illion Dollar Arm鈥� competition and travels the continent, from聽Bangalore to Mumbai, looking for talent. Accompanying him is a retired聽baseball scout played by Alan Arkin, who can make even narcolepsy seem聽funny.
J.B. comes up with two candidates, Rinku (Suraj Sharma, from 鈥淟ife聽of Pi鈥�) and Dinesh (Madhur Mittal, from 鈥淪lumdog Millionaire," a movie聽this one often implicitly references). He flies them back to Los Angeles, where they聽end up camping out in his fancy house, and puts them together with a聽USC baseball coach (played by the great Bill Paxton). Can they quickly聽develop into big-league material?
Even without resorting to Google, you will have no trouble figuring聽out the answer to that one. Director Craig Gillespie and screenwriter聽Tom McCarthy crowd the India scenes with exotic bustle, but it鈥檚 all聽good-natured; I never felt as if the filmmakers were being Hollywood聽colonialists. In the L.A. scenes, they mostly dispense with the usual starry-eyed stranger-in-a-strange-land stuff in favor of a more melancholic tone.聽These guys are just kids, and far from home.
Hamm gives an adept performance. (As J.B.鈥檚 wisecracking tenant,聽Lake Bell matches him.) It might have been better, though, if Hamm聽had brought out a bit more of J.B.鈥檚 self-serving sharkiness. This movie is聽altogether too聽nice. I prefer sports movies with more sass and snap,聽like the films Ron Shelton (鈥淏ull Durham鈥�) used to make, or even parts聽of 鈥淢oneyball.鈥� 鈥淢illion Dollar Arm鈥� is enjoyable enough, but it鈥檚 onto聽a bigger subject than it knows what to do with: the money-grubbing聽globalization of American sports. Grade:聽B- (Rated PG for mild language and some suggestive content)
