A League Of Their Own (DVD 2000)

Tom Hanks, Geena Davis and Madonna star in this major-league comedy from the team that brought you Big. Hanks stars as Jimmy Dugan, a washed-up ball player whose big league days are over.

Hired to coach in the All-American Girls League of 1943 - while the male pros are at war - Dugan finds himself drawn back into the game by the heart and heroics of his "all-girl" team. Jon Lovitz adds a scene stealing cameo as the sarcastic scout who recruits Dottie Hanson (Davis) the "baseball dolly" with a Babe Ruth swing.

Teammates Madonna, Lori Petty and Rosie O'Donnell round out the roster, taking the team to the World Series. Based on the true story of the pioneering women who blazed the trail for generations of athletes.

This movie is about ten times better than it has any right to be considering how director Penny Marshall could have been tempted to make it, and how phoney is the actual baseball played by the young women?

However, what makes it work are fine performances by Geena Davis as catcher Dottie Hinson, and Lori Petty as her younger sister, Kit Keller. Geena Davis absolutely looks the part with her cool confidence and stately figure while Lori Petty is scrappy and believable as the little sister whose pluck and determination set the stage for a sister-rivalry climax at the end. Jon Lovitz as Ernie Capadino, the baseball talent scout, is funny as he delivers just about all the best one liners of the film. But the guy who really holds the whole thing together is Tom Hanks as one-time home run king Jimmy Dugan, who is now the Rockford Peaches' alcoholic manager. His transformation from a crude, uncaring drunk to the team's hard-nosed but soft-hearted leader is very well and believably done. Hanks was never more charming than here and seldom funnier.

Just as good as the work of the fine cast is Marshall's clear, old-fashioned direction. In many ways this film is a throwback to an earlier time when films set out to warm the hearts of the audience and uplift their spirits. Sure, there is evil in the world and you can't win them all, but you can try, is what this film makes us feel, and if you do, something good will happen. There is of course a somewhat self-conscious retrospective look at the sorry political and social state of women sixty years ago, but Marshall does not wallow in the politics. Instead she emphasizes a fun-to-watch tale with real human characters.

Baseball fans might well notice the problems with the playing and scoff at the costumes the women had to wear, but the majority of us will ignore this, enjoy the film and find it all agreeable.