This inspiring true story about America’s most precious past time, baseball, grabs attentions of many around the globe. Director Craig Gillespie adds Indian culture and charm within the film. With the many Indie songs throughout the film, e.g. We could Be Kings- KT Tunstall. The whole soundtrack sets a nice mood to keep viewers interested on what they are watching. Jon Hamm (Don Draper, Mad Men), is the main character in the movie. His role as a sports agent could not have been played any better. He finds opportunities in India, where he hopes to find amaeteur cricket players that can throw a baseball over 80 MPH. He quickly finds two 18-year olds, Suraj Sharma (Pi Patel, Life of Pi) Madhur Mittal (Salim Malik, Slumdog Millionaire). He takes them to L.A. The adjustment from India to America was hard for the boys. Eating different foods and learning how to speak another language was just some of the many difficulties the boys had on top of learning how to pitch a baseball.
More than seven billion people in the country of India love to watch or play the sport, cricket. Funny to find out minutes in the movie that neither of the boys who could throw a baseball, liked cricket or had never played it. Instead, as kids, they each were involved in track and field, both throwing the javelin. They each earned gold medals for being one of the top javelin throwers in India. During the movie, some may notice that the actor for Rinku Singh was throwing left handed. This was out of line for Suraj Sharma though because he was a regularly right handed. It took lots of practice and time for Sharma to be an efficient left handed pitcher for the movie.
The directing throughout the movie is adequate by Gillespie. The only thing I would have changed is the length of the film. I believe that 124 minutes was too long and that many audience members lost interest halfway throughout the film. I thought that they should have spent less time filming the contest in India and more time filming the boys learning how to pitch in the United States. Other than that, I thought that Gillespie had some great, crucial parts in the movie that viewers could relate to themselves.
Overall, I would give this movie 7/10 stars. It was good and bad. I thought it was good that the movie had a great Indian culture feeling. With the music, people, and even the everyday life of the people that live in India. The sport part of the movie could have been shorter. Most people could agree that they could guess what would happen to the Indian boys. But was it certain? After the last scene you could tell where their futures are headed.
This movie is to the heart. It was what a true story movie should be like. It had drama and sports mixed together to make it an enjoyable story for everyone to see. In the end we all can agree, baseball isn’t just about business. You should have fun too.
Currently, Singh is pitching in the MLB. He is with the Pittsburgh Pirates. Patel was on the Pirates for three years, but recently moved back to India to coach baseball.
By Sam Clubb