good back-story, and good acting

As Good As It Gets

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

****SPOILERS**** Towards the end of the movie "Night Game" Houston Astro pitcher Sil Daretto, Alex Garcia, walks off the pitchers mound as the game is about to start and to the surprise and astonishment of all those on the baseball field and in the stands walks over to newlyweds Mike & Roxy Sever, Roy Scheider & Karen Young. Daretto congratulates them on their wedding and sincerely tells Mike & Roxy to enjoy the game, the nightmare was at last over for all of them.A number of young women were found dead in and around the beaches of Houston and Galveston and the one thing they all had in common is that they were murdered when Houston Astro ace pitcher Sil Daretto pitched and won a night game at the Astro-Dome. They also they had their throats slashed by some hook that the killer used. The movie "Night Game" mixes baseball with murder in this very unusual story about a disgruntled former Houston Astro player Floyd Epps, Rex Linn, who was cut by the team to make room for Daretto and on top of all that lost his pitching hand in a bus accident as he was leaving. Epps wants to upstage Daretto when ever he wins a ballgame by committing a murder that same night and getting the headline for his crime over Daretto victory. It's Epps' insane way of getting even for what he holds Daretto responsible for; the loss of his job being a pitcher for the Astros and his left hand. Roy Scheider sleep-walks through his role as a former baseball player now Galveston policemen and the movie is better then the average made for TV movie even though it isn't but should have been one. The ending was a bit ridicules with Epps chasing Roxy all over the catwalk outside a waterfront restaurant with Roxy not having the sense to get inside and thus not getting trapped by the insane hooked killer. In fact Roxy actually ran outside the eatery as she saw Epps and easily got trapped by him. Mike came to Roxy's rescue in just the nick of time with Rex hook and all getting dumped in the ocean below after taking a number slugs from Mike's revolver.Dopey but watchable film that was a bit too unbelievable not in the fact that Epps was a crazed former baseball player who felt that he got a raw deal from life and wanted to rectify it in his own crazy way. As you would have expected the local police as well as the Texas justice department were so slow and incompetent in realizing who Epps was when the evidence was right in front of them, the man the hook and the motive, but were just too blind to see it.

. . . this what the serial killer movie looked like. The plot is leaky to say the least: someone would have picked up on the fact that the murders only occur when the local team plays, and when a certain player scores. The fact that he kills with a hook would get out, and someone would immediately remember a disaffected loner with a hook for a hand. FBI Behavioural Sciences would solve this in a day.The director seems immensely impressed with the fact he's filming in Texas, far from the gaze of Studio execs, and packs in endless loving aerial vistas. His visual style is stuck in TV Movie Lite, and along with the soundtrack could have originated from anytime since 1972. Only the clothes and hairstyles suggest its 80's dating, and even those seem stuck in a timewarp from 1985 rather than 1989.Roy Scheider looks embarrassed, Karen Young flashes her breasts in the first 10 minutes. Subplots about Scheider's character's father's links to organised crime and tension with his girlfriend's mother (who he dated in High School) detract from the story and go unresolved. One face to watch out for: the blonde victim in the Hall of Mirrors is played by Renee O'Connor, Xena's sidekick Gabrielle. I only watched the rest of the film because I thought I recognised her face and wanted to check the credits!

Roy Scheider plays a Galveston, Texas police detective trying to catch a serial killer. It seems when a popular Houston Astro pitches a winning night game, a beautiful blonde winds up dead near the beach. This crime drama also stars Richard Bradford, Paul Gleason, Karen Young, Lane Smith and Rex Linn. This movie quickly becomes predictable, but keeps your interest to the end.

This is a classic, in which a serial killer preys on young women, in which they are connected to home games played by the Houston Astros. The story might be mediocre, but fits the detective/murder mystery/serial killer genre. If you liked I Know What You Did Last Summer, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, and Candyman, go ahead and rent this from your local video store.