For Love of the Game: Critic Reviews

The film comes across like the un-Bull Durham: Every woozy cliche that Shelton and Costner refrained from has been given pride of place here.

Thinking back through the movie, I cannot recall a single thing either character said that was worth hearing in its own right, apart from the requirements of the plot.

For the first 100 minutes or so I found this hokey but serviceable; after that my watch became more meaningful than anything I could locate on-screen.

Costner is as uneven as the storytelling itself, stone cold at moments, shimmeringly real in others.

A perfect game in Yankee Stadium is no big deal these days; two have been pitched in the past 16 months. But a good baseball movie, that's hard.

Those who have even a small soft spot for baseball's soothing rhythms will be hard-pressed to resist it.

Like Billy this movie is good on the field, but not so much once off it.

Memo to all involved: It's a game.

An old-fashioned Hollywood sports story/romance.

Costner and Preston's convincing work together go a long way in keeping the audience interested and involved.

For Love of the Game is painless, but it's also pompous and pious about baseball in a way that doesn't mean much to a non-fan like me.

[The] game stretches over most of the film, but any anticipated suspense is undercut by the sepia-tinted inserts charting the couple's bumpy uninvolving five-year romance from first meeting to acrimonious split(s)

Costner and company do a fine job getting you into the head of an aging sports idol at a pivotal moment in his life.

*For Love of the Game continually pushes its luck past the breaking point.

Like Chapel, Costner believes himself to be great, even when he's slowly getting worse.

At two hours-plus, it doesn't just seem long, it sometimes feels like a double rain delay.

While For Love of the Game has much to recommend it, particularly Costner's strong, understated performance, Raimi throws too many unnecessary curves.

Preston is forgettable as "this week's blonde," adding her name to a list of women wooed by this poster boy for the strong, silent type.

[Raimi's] involvement in this grating star vehicle is perhaps the most disappointing aspect of For the Love of the Game: the Evil Dead are, presumably, turning in their grave.

Costner baseball flick is great at motion, not so hot at emotion.

Instead of quitting while he's way ahead, Costner takes on For Love of the Game, a melodramatic film version of Michael Shaara's novel.

The copious footage devoted to Billy and Jane's encounters might have been easier to sit through is there was any magic between Costner and Preston, but they're acting in two different films.

Even the most adamant purists of the game will appreciate the utter flawlessness of the choreography, which is arguably the most realistic in the history of the genre.

Despite a creaky moment or two, it's an entertaining star vehicle that works as both an engrossing competition movie and a poignant love story.

This is all insidious, self-aggrandizing fantasy; an aging ballplayer's balking on a lucrative contract renewal is as likely as Sam Raimi's turning down a paycheck for a vanity production like this.