Major League 1989, Rated R

Buy it from

Starring Tom Berenger, Charlie Sheen, Wesley Snipes.

Like just about any recent movie with the notable exception of Lone Star, should you be breathing, you'll be able to poke several holes in the credibility of Major League's script, but chances are good you'll be having so much fun watching the on-screen action, that you won't care about little things like the fact that Major League Baseball's stolen base leader wasn't technically invited to any spring training camps.

Tom Berenger, Charlie Sheen, and Wesley Snipes, who did absolutely nothing in his role as Willie 'Mays' Hays to dispel the notion that he only plays cops and baseball players, star as three members of the Cleveland Indians. During the last off-season, the Indians' team owner died, leaving control of the ball club to his wife, an ex-showgirl, played by Margaret Whitton. Whitton, like most of the rest of the universe, hates Cleveland. She hates the weather, the localized speech patterns, the weather, the crumbling stadium, the weather, and the fact that Cleveland doesn't have many nice, accessible polo grounds. So, in a blatantly self-serving plan, Whitton decides to put together a team with so little talent, that the Indians will finish dead last, drawing so few fans that she will be able to movie the team to Miami, a city with warmer weather, and more good looking houseboys named Pepe that she can seduce. Since Major League was produced in Tinseltown, as opposed to Kamachatchka, and Americans, generally speaking, have some mental faculties that they can utilize, it comes as no surprise to anyone that in the end, the Indians, who in spring training might not have been able to beat a 7 year old, girls softball team named the Fireflies, ends up winning the teams first pennant in nearly 40 years. This is quite predictable, and, since we've seen this 107 times before, isn't that entertaining; but the ride to the pennant is an extraordinary amount of fun to watch.

Sheen, Snipes, and Berenger, in his pre-Chasers, The Last of the Dogmen, and Sliver suckfest days, all have an easy going charm about them, that engages the viewer, and makes it hard not to empathize with the situations the three, and consequently the team, face. The supporting cast, including Corbin Bernson, Dennis Haysbert, and James Gammon, who plays the Indians' Phil Jackson like manager, meshes very well, creating a chemistry not often seen between the characters in sports films. Ward's script isn't that original, and doesn't exactly venture into new, ground breaking territory like Schindler's List, but is conservatively strong with his focused look at the lives of the players both on and off the field, and his vastly different characterizations of the individual players. This differentiation between the Indians often produced the movies best scenes, as the guys all have different opinions, and aren't afraid to voice them. This ultimately leads to lines of dialogue that kept me smiling like, "Are you trying to say Jesus Christ can't hit a curveball?" at the climax of a conversation between A veteran, Christian pitcher, and Haysbert's voodoo practicing, right fielder.

The acting is acceptable, and Ward's style of direction, allowing entire plays to take place in one take, a refreshing change of pace from the majority of other sports pictures. The ensemble cast of Major League kept me interested and entertained, something Mr. Baseball didn't begin to do. Of the two '90's Baseball Comedies, there's only one choice to make, see this one.