{"id":4264,"date":"2009-05-03T03:22:49","date_gmt":"2009-05-03T11:22:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=4264"},"modified":"2009-05-04T21:48:11","modified_gmt":"2009-05-05T05:48:11","slug":"eight-men-out-john-sayles-1988-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=4264","title":{"rendered":"Eight Men Out (John Sayles, 1988): USA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Byron Potau<\/a>.\u00a0 Viewed on DVD.<\/p>\n

\"\"Recently, it is the use of performance enhancing drugs that has shamed the sport of baseball. \u00a0But back in 1919 it was the Chicago Black Sox scandal, in which several members of the Chicago White Sox threw the World Series.\u00a0 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<\/a><\/em>, is an enduring classic.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 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\u2019s promised bonus from Comisky for winning the pennant.\u00a0 The notorious tight wad Comiskey is despised among his players for his incredible frugality when it comes to them.\u00a0 He has the team\u2019s 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.\u00a0 Eddie finishes the season with twenty nine wins and Comiskey stubbornly refuses to give him the bonus.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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 \u201cShoeless\u201d Joe Jackson (D.B. Sweeney), though he is more or less bullied into accepting the money.\u00a0 Stubborn and competitive third baseman Buck Weaver (John Cusack) won\u2019t tell on the other guys, but refuses to accept any money and plays every game to win.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

The film is an absolute delight in every facet, and one of the greatest baseball films of all time.\u00a0 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. \u00a0But \u00a0it 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The great thing is someone else might have a completely different favorite three performances from this film since they are all so wonderful.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Whether a baseball fan or not, this is a great film and fun for all to watch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Byron Potau.\u00a0 Viewed on DVD. Recently, it is the use of performance enhancing drugs that has shamed the sport of baseball. \u00a0But back in 1919 it was the Chicago Black Sox scandal, in which several members of the Chicago White Sox threw the World Series.\u00a0 Independent filmmaker John Sayles might not seem a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dvd","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4264\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}