A League of Their Own (1992)
No matter who you are, you'll relate to A League of Their Own. It's funny and dramatic, with great, quotable lines, and terrific performances. It's a crowd-pleaser, a movie you'll look back upon fondly right away.
In 1943, every young able-bodied men have left for Europe to fight the war. To keep the profits coming to the team owners and to give the people some entertainment, the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) is created. The film chronicles the rise of the Rockford Peaches. Nobody respects them, not the least bit their washout of a coach Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks). But their star player Dorothy "Dottie" Hinson (Geena Davis) has what it takes to take them to the top, and make this league something to be taken seriously.
Right away, you'll latch onto the characters. These women want to be taken seriously as athletes They play for real. Sliding, hitting, giving it their all every single time. But this movie is not a gender-swapped selection of cliches. They aren’t a collection of underdogs just waiting to get their big break so they can go out and change the world. They're real people, products of their time. As soon as their husbands come back from the war, they’re going to head right back into the kitchen, ready to cook and raise the kids as if their time on the field never happened. It mixes the exhilaration you feel as they rise through the ranks with melancholy. They don’t realize how big of an impact they are going to have and you wonder what if...
You don't expect to find great conversation-starters out of sports movie but A League of Their Own has plenty. The players are not taken seriously because of their gender. To get attention, they have to be feminine and sexy. To be seen as legitimate, they have to try twice as hard as their male counterparts and shatter away the expectations placed on them. There is a lot of emotion in this movie on the screen as these women have to confront big ideas. There's even more going on in YOUR head. You wonder what you would do, or how you would react if placed in their shoes.
That would be plenty to keep you entertained, but there’s more. This is also a great sports movie. It’s a case of the ultimate underdogs. The coach doesn’t even believe in them. They have to prove themselves to EVERYONE. Their families, their teammates, to the world that is hesitant to fill baseball stadium to watch a bunch of ladies play, even to themselves. Baseball may not necessarily be what I would call an interesting sport to watch but here, I was gnawing on my fingernails. The way Hans Zimmer’s score was pounding in my ears (or was that my heartbeat?) during the final game, the uncertainty of who was going to win (because the movie does a great job keeping you guessing). It felt as real as a live event. My only criticism if I had to find one is that some of the baseball game montages do run on a bit long. It's worth seeing just to get a look at Tom Hanks playing a jerk. He's great at it too!
Even if you don’t like baseball, catch A League of Their Own. You easily latch onto the characters, the casting is immaculate (particularly in the before/after scenes) and it chronicles a chapter in sports history that’s worth telling. The movie makes you feel good and makes you think too. It only gets better if you can watch it with a crowd and discuss it afterward. (On DVD, March 6, 2015)
