Million Dollar Arm
Director: Craig Gillespie
Cast: Jon Hamm, Pitobash, Suraj Sharma, Madhur Mittal, Aasif Mandvi, Darshan Jariwala, Lake Bell, Alan Arkin, Bill Paxton, Ray Maualuga, Tzi Ma
Rating: (PG)
4 stars (out of 5)
Sport is big business even in New Zealand, but when you watch a movie about American sport you realise just how big a business it really is.
Million Dollar Arm (Rialto) tells the true story of sports agent JB Bernstein (Jon Hamm), who comes up with an idea to revitalise his business: India is full of cricket players and if even a small percentage of them could switch to baseball, it would be a huge marketing triumph for the American game.
So JB travels to India to shoot a reality TV show called Million Dollar Arm, in which they travel the country holding try-outs for pitchers.
The top two win a cash prize and trip to America to be trained in the hope of being signed to a professional team.
Despite struggling to adjust to a different country and culture, he eventually cobbles together enough suitable contestants and finds his winners, but if he found India hard going, Rinku (Suraj Sharma) and Dinesh (Madhur Mittal) are just as disconcerted by America.
In the end, Million Dollar Arm is not really about sport, but how a selfish man is forced to nurture others and finds himself changed by the experience.
Best thing: There is plenty of opportunity here for cultural offence, but all the characters are so firmly real people that stereotyping is subverted.
Worst thing: This follows the trajectory of every sports movie made. A little injection of the unpredictability of real life would have been welcome.
See it with: The sports fan in your life. You can enjoy Jon Hamm's manly vista while he grumbles that there is not nearly enough sport in this ''sports'' movie.
