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For Love of the Game
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Reviews & Ratings
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Greg P.
09-08-2025Great movie. A good baseball and love story.
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George N. Schmidt
09-08-2025"For Love of the Game" is not Bull Durham (still the best baseball movie of all time), but it's close. This is thanks to Kevin Costner's ability to live the role he plays in his "baseball days" (and the fact that he doesn't have to do his own stunts from the mound or behind the plate in either movie).The story is straightforward: It's the season's end, and also nearing the end of the career of the protagonist, a pitcher who has been "one of the best" but is now on is last legs in the majors. Loyal to his team (and teammates, as his relationship with his catcher shows). He's one of the "boys of summer". He's equally not the kind of guy you'd want to be dating your daughter. But inserting the "girls" (the wives and girlfriends section is one of the neatest little bits of the movie) makes the movie complete, because it's so schmaltzy but gives the movie a chance to move away from the action on the field to the action in "TVland" where so much of baseball is consumed in the real world today.And our hero is pitching for Detroit against the Yankees. As usual (back then), the Tigers are out of the running for the "post season" but still fierce and snarling against the Yankees as only a Midwesterner can appreciate. And only someone with a rich appreciation of the days back to when Frank Lary and Jim Bunning would dominate the Yankees could fully get this part. The Tigers may not have won many pennants back then, but...From that set up on, the story gets a lot right, bad knees and all. Costner and those he works with know the importance of the relationship between the pitcher and "his" catcher as well as anyone who loves "the national pass time." And the movie also gets as well as any the fierce rivalry between a pro on the mound and the pro in the batter's box. Anyone who has taught Little League and high school players to "pitch inside" knows about this. And about "That's why it's called hard ball!"And so, as the game progresses, the audience, both in the movie and watching here at home, realizes that our protagonist has the chance to pitch the PERFECT GAME.Out by out and inning by inning, the tension builds as only the tension can build during a no-hitter or perfect game, one of the great moments in any sport at any time in history.Of course, because of the insertion of the romantic piece, the end of the game is not completely the end of the movie. But for those of us sentimental about baseball -- and about good baseball movies -- even this works. (For me, better than the panties scene in Bull Durham, actually). Major League players may be men "playing a boy's game," but they are also men -- and not cartoon characters as some baseball movies may make them out to be.So... I'll be watching this movie now and then with my young sons, who are now playing Little League, just as I watched one White Sox perfect game myself and discussed it with my elder son (not an adult, but who had the "love of the game" through high school with a city champion team in Chicago)...And another perfect game that proved to Chicago that the "Perfect Game" also has to be appreciated in context.But that's another story for two movies that haven't yet been made.
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Lady Bug
09-08-2025DVD is exactly as described by the seller. I totally love baseball and am loving family movies about baseball. These movies are older movies and hard to find and if you do find them they are way expensive. I was happy to find one I could afford. It arrived very soon after I ordered it. This DVD was in new wrapping and I'm totally satisfied.
Technical Specifications
Product Description Kevin Costner (Field of Dreams) stars in For Love of the Game, a heartwarming drama about love, life and the perfect game. Legendary Detroit Tigers pitcher Billy Chapel (Costner) has always been better at baseball than at love. Nobody knows that better than his on-again, off-again girlfriend, Jane (Kelly Preston). At the end of a disappointing season, just before what may be the last professional game of his life, Jane tells Billy she's leaving him. Now, with his career and his love life in the balance, Billy battles against his physical and emotional limits as he plays the game of his life and must come to a critical decision that will change his future forever.Bonus Content:Spotlight on LocationDeleted ScenesThe Perfect GameOn The Mound Trivia GameTheatrical TrailerProduction NotesCast and FilmmakersUniversal ShowcaseRecommendationsDVD-ROM Features Amazon.com Billy Chapel (Kevin Costner) is having a bad day. His girlfriend Jane (Kelly Preston, stunning as ever) says she's leaving, and his boss (Brian Cox) says he's selling the business and ace employee Billy may be out of job. Sounds like business as usual for an old-fashioned veteran. However, the business is baseball and for Billy Chapel, the 40-year old former all-star for the Detroit Tigers, it means his career--and his life--is at a crossroads. Although it is no Bull Durham, For Love of the Game finds a solid and very believable role for Costner. The film is based on Michael Shaara's (The Killer Angels) stream-of-consciousness novel (the rough manuscript was found after his death 1988). The entire film takes place on Billy's day on the mound against the Yankees, a meaningless late-season game for the Tigers, but everything for Billy. In flashbacks, he lingers over his long relationship with Jane and his baseball career (from World Series heroism to a career-threatening injury). His one viable link to the game at hand is his catcher, played winningly by John C. Reilly. Costner, like Chapel, is looking for one more great performance, but the film is too simplistic and loopy at times to resonate. The love story has an extra helping of cuteness, and legendary baseball announcer Vin Scully nearly takes on a leading role, waxing grandiloquent. It's no grand slam, but a solid double. --Doug Thomas
