That was an excellent one.

Sorry, this movie sucks

Blistering performances.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

"Mr. Baseball" is a pretty good film and it is enjoyable to watch. However, the main character, Jack (Tom Selleck) is rather unrealistic and if his character had been toned down just a bit, I think it would have been a better film.When the film begins, Jack is playing in the major leagues for the New York Yankees. However, despite being a star in the past, his last season was terrible and he is now about to be released. But no other American team wants him because he's overpaid, arrogant and not performing. His only option...play ball in Japan. But his road to success is VERY bumpy...much of it because the culture is so different and because Jack is an obnoxious idiot! Can Jack learn to be a little less 'Jack' and manage to make a success of it?As I said, Jack is a character that comes off poorly...entertaining to watch but also one dimensional and cartoonish. Of course life will be difficult for a major leaguer to move to Japan...but not THIS much because his character does NOTHING to try to learn Japanese customs or fit in with the team. Perhaps the filmmakers thought they needed to exaggerate all this...I think toning him down a bit would have been wiser. Still, it is worth watching....warts and all.

Viewed on DVD. Subtitles =three (3) stars. Director Fred Schepisi delivers a very limp romantic comedy with a phony, Americanized version of Japanese baseball as a back drop (those interested in the culture of real Japanese baseball may wish to read Robert Whiting's 1989 definitive book on the subject, You Gotta Have Wa). The film's plot involves an over-the-hill American major league player whose contract is bought by a Japanese team. This fish-out-of-cultural-water scenario is far better and more accurately described in Whiting's book. Some cultural nuances, however, are caught in the script including the politically-correct role of the Gaijin-player's interpreter (also described in Whiting's book). Film was not shot in a Japanese baseball park (and, aside from spectator and a few other pickup shots, does not appear to be filmed in Japan), and it sure looks it! Major film composer Jerry Goldsmith's score is surprising uneven and not that great (perhaps the orchestrations did him in?). Subtitles are missing about half the time. Slightly better than watching screen savers on Amazon Fire TV. WILLIAM FLANIGAN, PhD.

Mr. Baseball casts Tom Selleck as an aging first baseman for the New York Yankees who is cast adrift by his team when they sell his contract to a Japanese team. Not that it ever has been done in real life, but I can't see why it couldn't happen unless a ballplayer has a smart agent and inserts a clause preventing same.As early as the Sixties aging ballplayers from the states have gone to Japan when no one wanted them any more in organized baseball here in the USA. Better the Major Leagues in that country than the Minor Leagues here. I recall Larry Doby and Don Newcombe as two players who went to Japan in their declining years when I was a lad. Baseball has been popular there since Babe Ruth led an all star contingent of our best players in 1934 to Japan. It was on that trip that Moe Berg was gathering intelligence. Not even World War II killed the sport, in fact it was a point of contact during the US occupation.Selleck in Japan has a lot of trouble adapting to the Japanese style where it is considered bad form to argue too much with an umpire or try and take out a second baseman or shortstop to break up a double play. Guys like Earl Weaver or Dallas Green or Billy Martin would have gone nuts there. He's also having trouble adapting to Japanese culture in general. Helping him along is Aya Takanashi who is a public relations person for the club and daughter of the manager Ken Takakura who is a real hard nosed character. Of course when Selleck and Takanashi get to kanoodling he doesn't know she's Takakura's daughter.Takakura learns something from Selleck, that organized baseball is a bunch of men being well paid to play a game that they are skilled at and an element of fun must be involved. I remember a lad when Stan Musial retired after the 1963 season he said that he knew that he would retire when he no longer got any enjoyment out of putting on the uniform of the St. Louis Cardinals and playing the game. When it was just work and the body aches out lasted the enjoyment it was time to quit. Selleck has that same philosophy.So many of Japan's baseball stars now play in the states that their leagues almost serve as a super minor league for our's. And this review is dedicated to one of the best of them, Ichiro Suzuki. Japan integrating the American baseball scene truly arrived when Ichiro broke the long standing record of George Sisler for most base hits in a single season. As Babe Ruth and his all stars showed the Japanese about baseball, Ichiro shows us now how well they learned the game. And if it wasn't for that trip, Mr. Baseball would never have been made.

Many believe this movie is a baseball movie. Such people are disappointed because it's about a baseball player, but the movie isn't about baseball.Some think this movie is a romantic comedy and are disappointed because the relationship isn't really developed. This movie is not a romantic comedy.This movie is about culture. An arrogant American Major Leaguer and a stern traditional Japanese baseball manager cannot succeed because they can't, indeed, won't understand one another. It's after they manage to break through the cultural barrier that they have success. The ballplayer becomes more Japanese in his team mentality and the manager more American in allowing individual achievement, and they meet in the middle.Baseball and the romance is subordinate to this critique of the two cultures. Many who have no understanding of the Japanese mindset miss this and think it's a movie on baseball or romance and see the culture clash as mild comedy relief. It's not---the culture clash is the gravamen of the movie. Based on my own experience and understanding of the Japanese culture, I think this movie did quite well in that it didn't overly romanticize the Japanese culture nor overdo it in its portrayal.Overall, I believe this is an enjoyable and relaxing movie if one understands what it is really about.