Major League (1989)

This review includes full spoilers. Proceed accordingly. For other movie reviews from me, click HERE:

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Rating: R
Director: David S. Ward
Writers: David S. Ward
Stars: Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger, Corbin Bernsen, Margaret Whitton, James Gammon, Rene Russo, Wesley Snipes
Release Date: April 7, 1989 (United States)
Run time: 1 hour, 47 minutes

THE PLOT:

(via wiki)

Former Las Vegas showgirl Rachel Phelps inherits the struggling Cleveland Indians baseball team from her deceased husband. She reveals to her general manager, Charlie Donovan, that she intends to move the team to Miami by exploiting an escape clause in their contract with the city of Cleveland: if their season attendance falls below a certain number, she can terminate the lease and move the team. She plans to create the worst team in the major leagues, instructing team executives to fire the current players and replace them with rookies and veterans long past their prime. She starts by hiring Lou Brown, 30-year manager of the Triple-A Toledo Mud Hens, who runs a tire store in the off season.

Spring training begins in Tucson, Arizona, with Phelps’ list of players likely to fail: Jake Taylor, a former all-star catcher with bad knees; third baseman Roger Dorn, a prima donna more concerned with his financial portfolio than playing good baseball; aging starting pitcher Eddie Harris, who has resorted to doctoring the baseball; outfielder Pedro Cerrano, a voodoo-practicing power slugger who has trouble hitting breaking balls; speedy outfielder Willie Mays Hayes, who can steal bases but can’t hit; and rookie pitcher Ricky Vaughn, an ex-con who has a 100-mph fastball but no control, earning him the nickname “Wild Thing”.

Early on, the players struggle to come together as a team, with a feud developing between Dorn and Vaughn, but they win a few games under Brown and Taylor’s leadership. They discover Vaughn has poor eyesight, and once fitted with glasses, he becomes a dominant pitcher. Team morale and performance improve, so Phelps cancels several amenities, but they continue to build on their strengths. Meanwhile, Taylor reconnects with his old girlfriend Lynn and tries to rekindle their relationship, even though she is engaged to be married.

Nearly three-quarters of the way through the season, the team is 60-61, far exceeding expectations, and fans have begun to fill the stands. At this point, Donovan, tired of Phelps’ manipulations, reveals her scheme to Brown, who informs the team that she intended them to finish last so she could fire them all, then get better players after the move to Miami. Taylor decides that the only thing left to do is “win the whole fuckin’ thing”, to which the team agrees.

The Indians climb in the standings until they are tied with the New York Yankees for first place in the American League East division on the final day of the season, requiring a one-game playoff to determine the division champion and a bid to the ALCS. Watching the team’s celebration on TV, Dorn’s wife Suzanne sees him in an amorous embrace with another woman. In revenge, she sleeps with Vaughn and informs Dorn just before he leaves for the ballpark the next morning.

In the playoff game, the Yankees take a 2-0 lead, but the Indians tie the game. In the bottom of the ninth, Hayes scores the run that wins the Indians the division. As the team celebrates, Dorn finds Vaughn, punches him, then embraces him. Taylor sees Lynn, who no longer is wearing her engagement ring; she joins him in the celebration.

MY REVIEW:

It felt fitting to give Major League a rewatch with a new baseball season getting underway. This movie is three and a half decades old and it’s still great. I definitely recommend a rewatch if it’s been a while.

Sports movies tend to be formulaic, and this is no exception, but a formula is not a problem when it is executed well. This one succeeds. Even though you know the worst to first story is coming, the journey is still fantastic with a ton of enjoyable tension as several players, all of whom are going through complicated individual problems, come together against their common enemy – their boss. The team successfully spites her by winning. Dorn overcomes selfishness and becomes a team player. Vaughn overcomes his past, bad vision, and then a nemesis from the Yankees. Cerrano overcomes voodoo and learns to hit a curveball. Despite being way past his prime, Taylor grows up off the field and triumphs over his bad knees on it, outracing a throw to first, so that a young speedy phenom has a chance to score the winning run from third.

From beginning to end, the screenplay balances its comedy and drama really well, with the laugh moments still largely working decades later because they remain creative. I particularly enjoyed the team’s unconventional play-by-play guy, Harry Doyle (Bob Uecker.) As much as I liked the screenplay, in and of itself, I think the film works because it is extremely well cast. Sheen is awesome as Vaughn. Snipes is fantastic as Hayes. James Gammon is perfect as a crusty, curmudgeon baseball manager. Tom Berenger is fantastic as a former star, still happy to be in the Big Leagues, in a ring-chasing part of his career. For a movie, Major League does its actual baseball scenes really well, too.

The film is a bit of a time capsule, for better or worse, with “Indians” no longer being the Cleveland franchise’s mascot as of a couple years ago and the “Chief Wahoo” logo gone before the team name a few years prior. The franchise had decades of Native American themed references and nicknames in addition to the official one (ex: many referred to the team as “the Tribe”) and the movie mentions many of them. The movie was released long before the controversy over the mascot really began to boil over, so the team name itself isn’t really a part of the story. In fact, the various mascot references are made affectionately in the film. Nevertheless, if you are unfamiliar with professional baseball, or if you are young, the movie shows its age in that way.

Major League is rated R for a reason. The language is very adult throughout. There is some partial nudity, most of which is what you might expect to see in a locker room. A poster of the attractive female team owner becomes increasingly undressed during the squad’s late season winning streak. There are various other “adult situations” throughout the story, too. This is not a movie for young kids.

There aren’t really any “good” guys among the good guys. The movie almost goes out of its way to illustrate that point. One player is a felon. Another practices voodoo in the locker room. Multiple guys on the team are adulterers. The heart of the movie is how a common enemy, and winning, can bring together the most diverse and dysfunctional people. The result of telling this type of story was that it was unexpectedly moving to see the team dramatically outperforming the sum of its parts. As most of us are a bit dysfunctional, we can find hope for ourselves in that type of story.

Overall, I am happy to have rewatched Major League and I recommend it to anyone old enough to handle its more adult aspects. It’s still very funny, it’s star-studded cast is excellent, and it still delivers a strong and stirring emotional punch at its conclusion.

Have you seen Major League? What did you think?