CHICAGO – Once a year, it seems a studio releases a film that tries to nudge its way into the almost-holy canon of American sports cinema. Most years, studios succeed. Recently, we have been lucky with the caliber of sports films offered up to us.
As “The Final Season” shows us, though, just because you have all the right parts doesn’t mean you will make the perfect dish.
The film is the true story of baseball coach Kent Stock (Astin) who leads Norway High School through its last baseball season.
Stock has to overcome his own shortcomings with replacing longtime coach Jim Van Scoyoc (Powers Boothe) and convincing his team that its conclusive season is worth playing.
The dialogue is stale and in some parts sounds like the actors are reading VCR instructions. The lines that are injected with some emotion are so poorly acted that they come across more as funny than serious.
The whole cast looks like they are just going through the motions. Even the extras appear as if they have better places to be. “The Final Season” just has way too much going on.
The casting was particularly poor as Astin looks too young to be in charge of teenagers. By the way, where on Earth does a girl who looks like Rachel Leigh Cook fall in love with a guy who looks like Sean Astin?
Even though they were going for a delicious treat, the ingredients of poor acting, disastrous dialogue and bad casting made this a meal that needs to be skipped.
By Evan O’Donnell [12]
Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
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