Mr. 3000 ('04) 2004, Rated R Buena Vista

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Written by Eric Champnella, Keith Mitchell and Howard Gould; directed by Charles Stone III; starring Bernie Mac, Angela Bassett and Michael Rispoli. Released to DVD on February 1, 2005.

Actor Cary Grant was as dapper and elegant a man as Hollywood has ever has the fortunate to lay claim to. During his long and illustrious career, Grant didn’t walk across the screen as much as he glided. Every movement of his was a work of smooth artistry. Whether he was hailing a cab or ordering a drink, Grant was the epitome of grace and charisma. However, he had one glaring weakness that he (and his directors) tried to hide as much as possible: despite being an acrobat in his teens, Grant looked incredibly awkward whenever he tried to do anything remotely athletic. As a result of this, Grant tended to steer away from projects that would magnify this small flaw of his. Comedian-cum-actor Bernie Mac would be wise to follow in Grant’s footsteps. Though Mac is good health and decent shape, he looks distinctly miserable on the baseball diamond. And sadly, no amount of clever editing or well-timed speed ramps can cover this fact in director Charles Stone III’s baseball film, Mr. 3000.

Mac stars here as Stan Ryan, a Barry Bonds-esque player who harbors a "Me First" attitude that is complimented by his brusque, surly and argumentative style of dealing with his teammates, the media and his fans. How brusque, you ask? After getting his 3,000^th hit, Ryan traipses into the stands to confront a ten-year old kid who accidentally ended up with the ball in question. With hit number 3,000 to his name, Ryan retires in fitting style… literally quitting on his team in the middle of a pennant race. Nine years later, Ryan learns that, thanks to a miscalculation, he only has 2,997 hits. Rather than rest on his laurels–only 25 players in history would have more hits than he–Ryan decides to make a comeback to garner those three hits, in the same vein as the older, slower Jose Canseco’s attempts to reach for homerun number 500.

Reality and the silver screen investigation of baseball don’t usually go hand in hand. Filmmakers generally tend to have their players on one polar extreme of the game or the other. If the lead is not espousing Crash Davis-like poetry about the virtues of the game, he is ignoring them completely in favor of a bigger paycheck. If the team in question isn’t the best in the league, it’s the worst. Rather ironically, Mr. 3000’s major undoing comes with Stone’s attempts to pull the film away from the very black and white world of Hollywood baseball movies and insert some grey matter into the project. While this is original and refreshing in a certain light, nobody informed Mr. 3000’s screenwriters about this and the result is a film that deals with an absurd premise in a very down-to-earth fashion.

Playing for the Brewers, Ryan’s comeback is timed for September, when the major league rosters expand to 40 players from the normal 25. Out of the playoff race–we are talking about the Brewers, mind you–the Milwaukee brass is looking for a way to draw fans in the waning days of the season, so they bring back Ryan in a publicity stunt worthy of Eddie Gaedel’s name. While this makes perfect marketing sense, it puts a severe crimp in Ryan’s character arc. After twenty years in the majors behaving like the biggest primadonna in sports, becoming the fodder for numerous late night talk show jokes, I found it incredibly hard to believe that Ryan could successfully transition from the penultimate, Marbury-like ‘Me-first’ player to the consummate team player in well under a month’s time period. While also going 2-58 at the plate during that span. And not traveling with the team or playing on the road.

Mac looks awful as a baseball player–high strung batting coaches could have a coronary watching Mac hitch his hands prior to swinging–but his inability to grasp the very basic baseball fundamentals would be forgivable in the context of a plot that makes sense; nobody made more than a passing mention of Tim Robbins’ windup in Bull Durham. Stone deserves a significant amount of praise for his in camera efforts to hide Mac’s flaws–just count the number of extreme close-ups of Mac as he’s flailing away at the plate–but he simply can’t escape the stupidity at the core of this project.

Baseball is commonly viewed as one of the last remaining wholesome sports in America. Thanks to the efforts of Scott Boras and BALCO, I am finding it harder than ever to subscribe to this theory. Nonetheless, I still enjoy watching players and movies who hold this belief to be true. Sadly, Mr. 3000 is not one of those movies.

chris neumer

yes, it's true: A pitcher cannot step onto the dirt of the pitching mound without the ball. If he does it is consider a balk and the base runner(s) advance one base.