Field of Dreams review

Number 715 on the top 1000 films of all time is the sports-fantasy drama film 'Field of Dreams.'

Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) is a corn farmer in Iowa. Haunted by his poor relationship with his late father, he fears growing old without achieving anything. And that's when a mysterious voice tells him to plough part of his corn farm and to build a giant baseball ring instead. Several months after building the field, ghosts of famous baseball players Shoeless Joe Jackson (Ray Liotta) start appearing.

"Build it and and they will come" is the famous line from this film. Let me tell you if somebody built this film in a middle corn field in Iowa, I would not come back as a ghost and see it. I am not a baseball fan, so I didn't think I would enjoy this at all. However, the real reason why I did not enjoy it was that it was cheesy, overly-sentimental and completely lacking in any type of dramatic tension.

To say it had a slow start would be an understatement. The beginning is so lacking in any conflict that it almost put me to sleep. There's a middle-aged man, whom I have no reason to sympathise with, is going through a mid-life crisis. He thinks the solution to this is to go build a baseball diamond because some random ghost told me to do so. His wife goes along with this and the diamond is built without any issue. Ghosts of baseball players start appearing and Kevin Costner starts pitching and batting with them. Everything's hunky-dory. Where's the tension? Where's the conflict? Where's any reason for me to be interested in this film?

And the lack of any central conflict was this film's biggest problem. Ray Kinsella's mid-life crisis had such little immediacy and urgency that it was not engaging at all. His wife Annie (Amy Madigan) was fully supportive of his dreams, which again removed another source of conflict. Any recognisable conflict came from Ray and Annie potentially losing their farm to the bank, but even this was mostly-glossed over. And this all eventually culminated when their daughter Karin falls or is knocked off (it isn't clear which) some beachers and tumbles down in the most unrealistic and silliest looking way possible. But then she's healed by one of the baseball - playing ghosts. Just what?

This film wasn't entirely bad - James Earl Jones was enjoyable in a supporting role. But Field of Dreams was so lacking in substance and conflict and tension that it failed to be anything other than boring.

Moneyball review

 Number 720 on the top 1000 films of all time is the biographical sports drama 'Moneyball.'

Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) is the general manager of the Oakland Athletics baseball team. After a disappointing season, and with a minimal budget, he is on a mission to rebuild a bigger and better team. He enlists the help of Yale economics graduate Peter Brand (Jonah Hill) who uses special formulae to determine the best players to buy. This puts Beane in conflict with the other scouts and head coach Art Howe (Philipp Seymour Hoffman.)

Some critics have said that Moneyball is an enjoyable film even if you're not a baseball fan. I am a Brit, so I am most definitely not a baseball fan. Yet, I didn't enjoy Moneyball at all. But, of course, that's because I wasn't interested in the content rather than any fault of director Bennett Miller. The film held no importance or meaning to me. I didn't really understand what the characters were talking about.

Billy Beane used to be a baseball player himself. But after years of under-performing, he goes into management. He is haunted by his past failures which is revisited in odd flashbacks. This was supposed to flesh out his character, but I don't think enough time was spent on it to be effective.

I much preferred the quieter scenes where we see Billy trying to establish a connection with his estranged daughter Casey particularly when they're in a guitar shop and she sings The Show. This was very touching. I wish we had more scenes like this.

The actual performances weren't anything special either. Philip Seymour Hoffman was highly underused. While Jonah Hill's performance earned him a best supporting actor nod, I'm not sure whether his performance really merited it.

If you're a baseball fan, you'll probably love this film. And if you're not like me, you'll think it's a 153 minute snoozefest.