Mr. baseball
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Mr. baseball |
| Original title | Mr. baseball |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English , Japanese |
| Publishing year | 1992 |
| length | 108 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 6 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Fred Schepisi |
| script |
Theo Pelletier , John Junkerman , Gary Ross , Kevin Wade , Monte Merrick |
| production | Fred Schepisi, Doug Claybourne |
| music | Jerry Goldsmith |
| camera | Ian Baker |
| cut | Peter Honess |
| occupation | |
| |
| synchronization | |
| |
Mr. Baseball is an American sport - comedy from the year 1992 .
action
Jack Elliot is an aging New York Yankees baseball player . Because of his miserable training work and the resulting performance during the game, he will be kicked out against a rookie and will be sold. However, only one interested party from Japan reports , the Chūnichi Dragons . Reluctantly, Elliot agrees.
Arriving in Japan, Elliot is confronted with a culture that is completely alien to him and which he neither can nor wants to understand. So he quickly comes against his coach Uchiyama and his leadership style. He finds it inappropriate and quickly disregards it, which is why he also gets the team into trouble. His only ally on the team is the American Max, who has been playing baseball in Japan for five years . But he too distances himself from Elliot's disrespect. At the same time, Elliot developed a relationship with the beautiful Japanese girl Hiroko.
After Elliot has not in check and misbehaving again and again, it is after a game escalation in which he accidentally his own interpreter knockout. Strikes suspended. Hiroko then takes care of him and introduces him to her family, where Elliot finds to his annoyance that she is the daughter of his trainer Uchiyama. As a result, Elliot wants to leave immediately, but Hiroko and her father persuade him to stay for dinner; it would be a great insult not to do so. During the meal there is a scandal, which Hiroko angrily drives off alone. Elliot stays with Uchiyama and they both chat; Uchiyama explains to Elliot that his daughter planned this because she was guessing after her mother. He also learns that Uchiyama wanted to get him from America against all opposition in the club. Elliot is in sloppy form, but still an excellent player. But since he didn't want to settle in the Japanese league, both careers are now at stake. Upon hearing this, Elliot shows humility and the will to let Uchiyama train him. Elliot gets to know the Japanese virtues around the sporting spirit as well as the balance in the team, while Uchiyama learns from him to appreciate American encouragement instead of humiliation after miserable performances on the pitch.
Jack Elliot's performance increases after that, and he manages to hit a home run in seven consecutive games . He's about to break the 18-year-old record set by his coach Uchiyama. This in turn faces the problem that the club bosses would not like to see losing against the next opponent, and also that Uchiyama's record is broken by a Gaijin . In the game against the Yomiuri Giants , the Dragons are then 5-6 when Uchiyama Elliot signals that he should try to beat his record in order to finally win the game. But this decides against a record attempt and lets the ball "drain" from the racket in order to let his two teammates run to the goal on the bases. This succeeds and the game is won.
After the Dragons win, Max and Jack take the chance to return to Major League Baseball . While Max signs a contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers , Elliot, who has now married Hiroko, becomes a coach with the Detroit Tigers .
criticism
Mr. Baseball was received very negatively. Rotten Tomatoes scored just 2 positive out of 15 film reviews, which corresponds to a value of 13%. Just 36% of 8,808 users rated the film positively (as of April 17, 2011).
For Roger Ebert , the film was another formulaic sports film ("Mr. Baseball" is another one of those formula sports movies) , but he liked it because Schepisi and Selleck did a good job as the film was neither too constructed nor too dubbed sei (Schepisi and Selleck also do a nice, quiet job of making the title character convincing. He isn't overwritten or overplayed).
Janet Maslin of the New York Times regretted that a hard satire had become a light, shallow comedy (the finished version shows no signs of ever having been a hard-hitting satire. It is instead a light and sometimes ruefully funny comedy).
Kevin Thomas from the Los Angeles Times sees the problem of the film in the fact that in an age of political correctness it is a tightrope walk between believable characters and aggressive stereotyping in order not to lose humor (In this era of political correctness, Schepisi et al. inescapably find themselves on a tight wire, constantly having to balance the need to make Elliot and the Japanese he meets believably human yet avoid offensive stereotyping in their humor) .
“A film that alternates between sports and everyday scenes, which emphasizes aspects of humanity and friendliness towards others, but does not exhaust the possibilities of the subject. The confrontation between Western and Japanese customs ensures cheerful and stimulating entertainment. "
“Tom 'Magnum' Selleck shines as a former baseball ace in this amusing and action-packed sports comedy by director Fred Schepisi. However, the audience can laugh along even more if they understand something about baseball. Still: Selleck as a peaty ' gaijin ' in Japan is delicious. "
background
- After Universal Studios was taken over by the Japanese conglomerate Matsushita Electric Industrial , Fred Schepisi and Ed Solomon were commissioned to fly to Japan for research in order to avoid errors in the presentation of Japanese culture. When they came back, their script was rejected because it seemed too snappy. Kevin Wade was hired to replace Ed Solomon and to defuse the script within three weeks.
- The rookie who replaces Jack at the beginning of the film is former baseball player Frank "The Big Hurt" Thomas, who was under contract with the Chicago White Sox at the time.
- The scene in which Jack Elliot simply holds his bat the wrong way out of frustration is a throwback to the American baseball player Daryl Spencer, who was in the service of the Japanese team Hankyu Braves in 1965 and almost won the home run title if the pitchers had given him not permanently denied litters.
- The opening scene, in which Jack Elliot arrives at the airport, is based on the American baseball player Joe Pepitone, who joined the Tōkyō Yakult Swallows in 1973 .
- At the end of the film, Tom Selleck's character is the coach of the Detroit Tigers and wears the same baseball cap that he often wore in the television series Magnum .
- Mr. Baseball was Ken Takakura's 200th film.
publication
Mr. Baseball made its US theatrical release on October 2, 1992 and grossed over $ 20.8 million, making it the 63rd most successful film of 1992. After the VHS has already been released June 7, 1993 in the German market, the film on German television on was premiere on 16 July 1994 on free TV on RTL on August 9, 1997 broadcast for the first time.
Web links
- Mr. Baseball in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Mr. Baseball in the German dubbing file
Individual evidence
- ↑ Mr. Baseball on rottentomatoes.com , accessed April 17, 2011
- ↑ Roger Ebert: Mr. Baseball on suntimes.com of October 2, 1992 (English), accessed April 17, 2011
- ↑ Janet Maslin : Mr. Baseball (1992) on nytimes.com, October 2, 1992, accessed April 17, 2011
- ↑ Kevin Thomas: MOVIE REVIEW: 'Mr. Baseball 'a Culture-Clash Comedy on latimes.com, October 2, 1992, accessed April 17, 2011
- ↑ Mr. Baseball. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed September 4, 2016 .
- ↑ Mr. Baseball on prisma.de , accessed on October 20, 2011
- ↑ a b The SandC Interview: Fred Schepisi Director Mr. Baseball ( Memento of the original from June 10, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on sportandcinema.com on September 23, 2010, accessed April 17, 2011
- ^ Whiting, Robert: The Chrysanthemum and the Bat . Dodd, Mead & Co .: New York, 1977
- ↑ Mr. Baseball on boxofficemojo.com , accessed April 17, 2011
- ↑ Mr. Baseball on ofdb.de , accessed April 17, 2011
