The Final Season (2007)

User Rating:

6.6/10   

Director:

David M. Evans

Writers:

Art D'Alessandro (story) &
James Grayford (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

12 October 2007 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Sport

Tagline:

How Do You Want To Be Remembered?

Plot:

Kent Stock disrupts his life to become coach of the Norway High School baseball team and try to lead them to victory.

Plot Keywords:

Coach | Team | Baseball | Baseball Coach | Rural Life

Cast

Sean Astin	...	Kent Stock
Jesse Henecke	...	Principal Halbestrom
Powers Boothe	...	Jim Van Scoyoc
Owen Patchen Evans	...	Owen - The Batboy
Brett Claywell	...	Patrick Iverson
Nick Livingston	...	Kevin Stewart
Roscoe Myrick	...	Sammy Wilson
Alexander Roos	...	Steve Myers (as Alexander 'Sandy' Roos)
Jonathon Stoner	...	Jason Steffen
Christopher Cyronek	...	Brett Griffin
Rob Schemmel	...	Gerry Spitz
Chris Olsen	...	Eddie Fitz
Ric Swann	...	KZIA Radio Announcer
Preston Boothe	...	Brent Fitz
Marshall Bell	...	Harvey Makepeace

MPAA:

Rated PG for language, thematic elements and some teen smoking.

Runtime:

119 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

USA:PG | Singapore:PG

Filming Locations:

Cedar Rapids, Iowa, USA

Company:

Final Season, The

Trivia:

Mike Boddicker who played for Norway High School and in the major leagues with Boston and Baltimore had his son James Boddicker play Richie Iverson. His daughter also sang the national anthem at the final game.

Goofs:

Factual errors: The movie shows that Van Scoyoc coaches briefly in the Detroit Tigers farm system. It clearly indicates Niagara Falls as a AAA club, when in fact it was a single-A farm team. Toledo was (and is) the AAA team for Detroit.

Quotes:

Polly Hudson: Baseball is not just for boys.

Movie Connections:

References First Blood (1982)

Soundtrack:

Big League

Good Story, Bad Follow-through

Until I saw this movie, I thought inspirational sports movies were easy to make, but this movie made it seem otherwise. I was expecting more from a movie with such a good cast, but even they couldn't save this movie from destruction.

The main thing that ruined the movie was the screenplay. The story itself was inspirational but the sequence of events and the actual writing took that story and chopped it up into pieces. It almost seemed as though the writer had gone around to the people involved in the actual story and written down exactly what they said presented as a screenplay, not bothering to smooth and connect events.

Attempting to include everyone in the story, the character development was also lacking. One minute Mitch(Michael Angarano) was the mean outcast, and the next he was a mannerly star on the baseball team. It was too short of a period in the movie for the change to be believable.

Worse than the screenplay and bad character development was the score. Not one moment was the movie devoid of cheesy "inspirational" music. It is okay to use at the climax or a dramatic moment in the movie, but when it is played throughout the movie relentlessly, it loses its impact. It made the movie a joke. The movie would have been better off with no music at all. It ruined any and all touching scenes.

The only reason I give this movie a 6/10 is because through all of the mistakes, there was a fire lit in the viewer that wanted to fight for this small town team and see them succeed.