The Final Season (2007) Yari Film Group
1 hr. 53 mins.
Starring: Sean Astin, Powers Boothe, Rachael Leigh Cook, Tom Arnold, Mackenzie Astin, Marshall Bell, Michael Angarano
Directed by: David Mickey Evans
This film is rated: PG

Rating: ** stars (out of 4 stars)

Criticizing a familiar sports-themed flick that features the underdog overcoming the odds of adversity is an automatic cause to be hissed by the masses. In fact, it's like bludgeoning Bambi over the head with a rusty hammer. With that in mind, David Mickey Evans's The Final Season fits that particular bill. Inspirational but overly cliched with its pseudo-earnestness, Evans's hardball account of farmland angst through the undying spirit of competition is as deceptive as a knuckleball hitting a catcher's mitt. As with every small-scale sports saga--in this case the overused analogy of baseball's game of chance and triumph--The Final Season relentlessly exploits the staid sentimentality of coming together for a righteous moment. In short, this heartland-based hokum about a high school baseball team trying to incorporate the winning ways in life on the diamond and in consciousness is definitely corn off the cob.

We're informed that the schmaltzy The Final Season is based on a true story (isn't this always the scenario regarding this kind of fare?). Evans does have a genuine appreciation for the game of baseball (witness his notable "Sandlot" film series). However, Season takes its sweet time to materialize and can become as monotonous as a 13-inning ballgame after an hour rain delay. Manipulative, hopelessly corny and predictable, Evans's early 90's rural four-base fable strives for heartwarming gumption but gradually strikes out. This is the quintessential sports movie drenched in drippy dramatics, run-of-the-mill stock characterizations, an intrusive emotional soundtrack and quasi-motivational pep talks. Star/executive producer Sean Astin definitely tries to mine the same saccharine-coated sentiments that made his cult favorite college gridiron ditty Rudy a noteworthy narrative about passion and persistence.

Kent Stock (Astin) is the new coach for a small-town (pop. 586) Iowa high school team called the Norway Tigers. The pressure is on because Stock%u2014the former girls' volleyball coach will little baseball know-how%u2014is taking over a successful baseball program that has won 19 state championships. Stock has a tough act to follow as he is following in the footsteps of his immensely liked brief one-time mentor/predecessor Jim Van Scoyoc (Emmy-winner Powers Boothe). Stock's coaching experience isn't very vast at all. Because the school's baseball team will join forces with another big-time school twenty miles away this will be Stock's chance to lead his young men to victory as an independent entity. The Tigers have a distinctive reputation for beating other baseball teams that have bigger and better facilities. For once, Stock would like to oversee the Tigers to their next call of glory before they lose their quaint identity.

Simply, the popular ex coach Scoyoc isn't pleased with the school board's hasty decision to change the dynamic of their tiny school only to be swallowed up by the interest of a larger learning institution. The landscape is confusing because of the educational politics involved such as school budgeting, major cutbacks, lack of government funding and studying habits, etc. The town agrees with Scoyoc's discontentment about messing around with Norway's high school status as a scrappy sporting venue. Sparring with Scoyoc is lead straight-laced board member Harvey Makepeace (Marshall Bell) who insists that the school's long term goals to merge is certainly sound business. Makepeace was instrumental in ousting the highly decorated Scoyoc in favor of the inexperienced Stock. The reason is quite dastardly and opportunistic: should the wet-behind-the-ears Stock fail to nab another baseball championship then it would be justified that the school board's need to grow stronger with another school would be deemed necessary out of survival.

Can Stock's coaching tactics prove noteworthy to the surrounding region so that the Tigers can maintain their "David vs. Goliath" mantra? Will the determination of the Tigers' tradition redeem Coach Scoyoc and undermine the drastic moves of Makepeace and his misguided school board cronies? How will the entire community adjust to the unsettling climate brought on by the schooling authorities that want to disrupt the consistent formula that is cultivated from steady Tigers baseball and the proud followers of this cornfield crowd?

Screenwriters Art D'Alessandro and James Grayford juggles the melodramatic chores pertaining to more than the bench-warming banalities being featured. There is hardly any juicy baseball scenes to be evidenced although Evans does revere the atmospheric embracing of baseball and its contemplative luster. The format is woefully regimented with the same old outline about slow burning romance and sleepy-eyed rebellion. We are bombarded by the folksy approach of the farming personalities and the mawkish machinations behind pinning the hopes and dreams on a local high school baseball team that screams pride. The Final Season echoes a transparent tension and never really digs deep for its teary-eyed tapestry about America's cherished pastime or the heralded hicks that gravitate to this so-called sacred game of strategy.

The performances are as wooden as the players' dugout bench. Astin's Coach Stock isn't as quite dynamic in his vulnerability as his predicament suggests in the script. The subplot showcasing Stock's blossoming romance with an education official (played by Rachael Leigh Cook) strays more than a high-speed curveball of the plate. Bell's villainous school board stooge Makepeace is cartoonish at best. The "real" test of disturbance is demonstrated when a roguish new student/ballplayer named Mitch (Michael Angarano) arrives to cause some static for the normally disciplined and behaved Tigers. As expected, Mitch is a gifted baseball player and could give the Tigers a decisive edge in competition. Clearly, Angarano's Mitch is channeling the memorable hostilities as portrayed by Little Children Oscar nominee Jackie Earle Haley's combative Kelly Leak in The Bad News Bears movie. Surprisingly, Tom Arnold is affecting as Mitch's impatient father that cannot deal with his problematic son and the conflicting issues that overrule him. Off-screen sibling Mackenzie Astin gets the nepotism nod as he plays older brother Sean's/Stock's assistant on the team.

True, some moviegoers never completely tire of the "rah rah" attitude that are the blueprinted backbone in sporting themes such as the flaccid The Final Season. Still, the understandable resistance is also welcomed because the obviousness of the hardball heartstrings it pulls so heavy-handedly.

Frank Ochieng
@ World Voice News (2007)