Eight Men Out (John Sayles, 1988): USA

Reviewed by Byron Potau.  Viewed on DVD.

Recently, it is the use of performance enhancing drugs that has shamed the sport of baseball.  But back in 1919 it was the Chicago Black Sox scandal, in which several members of the Chicago White Sox threw the World Series.  Independent filmmaker John Sayles might not seem a good fit for this material, but he turns out to be the perfect fit and his film, Eight Men Out, is an enduring classic.

The 1919 Chicago White Sox are finishing up their pennant winning season and are the overwhelming favorites to win the World Series over the Cincinnati Reds.  As they head back to the club house after the last game of the season they are greeted by one of the underlings of team owner Charles Comiskey (Clifton James) who presents the players with flat champagne as the player’s promised bonus from Comisky for winning the pennant.  The notorious tight wad Comiskey is despised among his players for his incredible frugality when it comes to them.  He has the team’s manager bench pitcher Eddie Cicotte (David Strathairn) for two weeks so he can withhold the promised bonus of $10,000 to Eddie if he won thirty games.  Eddie finishes the season with twenty nine wins and Comiskey stubbornly refuses to give him the bonus.  The players feel underpaid and underappreciated, which is what sets the stage for gamblers to pitch the idea of throwing a few of the World Series games for $10,000 a game to each player involved.  With the whole operation bank rolled by famed gambler/gangster Arnold Rothstein (Michael Lerner), they get several of the players to agree including pitchers Eddie Cicotte, and Lefty Williams (James Read), and star player “Shoeless” Joe Jackson (D.B. Sweeney), though he is more or less bullied into accepting the money.  Stubborn and competitive third baseman Buck Weaver (John Cusack) won’t tell on the other guys, but refuses to accept any money and plays every game to win.  Not everything goes according to plan as the gamblers turn out to be less reliable than the players thought and some of the players have difficulty in trying to lose.

The film is an absolute delight in every facet, and one of the greatest baseball films of all time.  The period look of the film, from its costumes to its setting, captures the feel of the early 20th Century, and the New Orleans jazz style score by Mason Daring is a wonderful complement as well.  But  it is John Sayles sharp dialogue, right down to the shouts from the crowd, and the incredible ensemble acting that really make this film fun to watch.  There are so many splendid performances as everyone in the film seems at the top of their game, but some of my favorites are John Cusack as Buck Weaver, David Strathairn as Eddie Cicotte, and John Sayles who plays famous sports writer Ring Lardner.  The great thing is someone else might have a completely different favorite three performances from this film since they are all so wonderful.  Though it still had a small budget, the film looks much more expensive than it really is and is solid proof that Sayles can direct a film as polished as anything Hollywood has to offer, and do it on a much smaller budget.  Whether a baseball fan or not, this is a great film and fun for all to watch.