For Love of the Game

Billy Chapel (Kevin Costner) is the star pitcher for the Detroit Tigers Baseball team. Billy has been playing for the tigers for 19 years and is devastated on the day of the last game of the season to learn that with the sale of the team he is being considered for a trade with the Giants. Another blow on the same day when his girlfriend leaves him as well.

As the game begins we are taken through a series of flashbacks in Billy’s life. We start with the day he first met his girlfriend Jane (Kelly Preston) and continue on to experience all the good and bad times they have had together. This includes his promiscuous life as a highflying baseball player.

The game becomes a bit of a cliffhanger with a perfect game ensuring the Yankees have no runs on the board.

As the tension in the game grows so does the tension in Billy and the flashbacks in his mind.

Kevin Costner seems to have a knack for baseball movies as he has previously demonstrated in Field of Dreams.

Transfer Quality

The 2.35:1 anamorphic wide screen transfer is absolutely wonderful and only just short of reference quality,

The entire film is sharp and crisp and does not suffer from grain or any lack of focus or softness at all.

The colour palette is also spectacular and shows a very natural yet bright range of colours, and subsequently contrast and black levels are also perfect.

Shadow detail was immaculate and there was a great level of detail even in the deepest of blacks.

The only down side to the transfer are some very minor instances of aliasing which really wouldn’t be noticed by a normal viewer.

The layer change is a little disturbing and could have been placed very easily at a much better time.

Audio Transfer

The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio transfer is as far as I’m concerned reference quality, I can’t find any faults here not even tiny ones.

Dialogue was always sharp and clear and at no time was it hard to understand.

The entire soundstage has been used greatly on many many occasions and really draws you into the film. At times you could be forgiven for thinking you were right there watching the game in the stadium. Surrounding crowd noise was superb.

Basil Poledouris gives another fantastic score, which really is exceptionally perfect for the film. His dramatic and changing emotional music is quite extraordinary in this instance and I cannot praise it highly enough.

In short the audio transfer is nothing short of perfect!

Features

Theatrical Trailer

Cast and Crew biographies

Cast and Crew filmographies

Production Notes (extensive at 8 pages)

Featurette: Spotlight on Location. Presented 1.33:1 this is quite a good little promotional extra including some interviews a little behind the scenes footage and some film shorts.

Deleted Scene’s: A good collection of deleted scenes of varying quality.

Notes: The Perfect Game, Some details on perfect games from history and what entails a perfect pitchers game.

Game: On the Mound, A very cute little baseball trivia game which rewards correct answers with another black and white Featurette: Play ball with Babe Ruth.

z      DVD Rom Extras:

z      The story with pictures

z      Media Pictures

z      Behind the scenes

z      Cast and Filmmakers notes

z      Links to Universal’s web sites 

Overall

This is a great movie, coupled together with a superb transfer. Don’t miss it!

Review Equipment
TV: GE 68cm (16:9 selectable)
DVD: Samsung DVD909 (via S-Video)
Receiver: Yamaha DTS RX-V595a (Sweeeeet)
Speakers:-
Fronts: Wharfdale Diamond R6 (on a pair of custom made stands you'd KILL for)
Centre: Venturi
Rears: Sony bookshelf

- Reviewed