Million Dollar Arm

In the unofficial national game of India, cricket, anybody who can bowl at 90 mph/150 kmph or faster could be described as possessing a golden arm, or a million dollar arm. It emerges after seeing Million Dollar Arm (MDA) that the same applies to baseball, though the ball itself is made differently and the bowling (pitching, to be exact) is done in a different bio-metric action.\

Based on a true story, Million Dollar Arm is an American film about the quest of an American sports agent J.B. Bernstein (Jon Hamm) and his Indian partner Ash (Aasif Mandvi) to find a young man in India who can pitch the baseball around the 90 mark so that he can promote him back home with the help of a Chinese financier.  In a last ditch effort to save his sinking career as a sports agent, J.B. thinks-up a scheme to find baseball's next great pitching ace. Surfing TV channels one day, he thinks he can combine the hype of reality shows with the bowling ability of Indian cricketers, and lo! hit the jackpot.

Hoping to find a young cricket pitcher he can turn into a major league baseball star, J.B. travels to India to produce a reality show competition called Million Dollar Arm. With the help of a cranky but razor-sharp retired baseball scout (Alan Arkin), he discovers Dinesh (Madhur Mittal) and Rinku (Suraj Sharma), two 18 year old boys who have no idea about baseball, yet can throw a ball real fast. JB takes the boys home to America, to train. But both he and his American associates, and the boys and their so-called mentor Amit (Pitobash) are in for some serious culture shocks. It takes J.B.’s sensitive medical student neighbour Brenda (Lake Bell) to bring back some sanity.

Australian director Craig Gillespie (two feathers in his cap: Fright Night remake, Lars and the Real Girl, and one crown of thorns, Mr. Woodcock) fails to blend the various elements into a palatable compound. Almost all characters come across as cardboard cut-outs. There isn’t a single shot of a baseball game. Perhaps the film has been made on a very tight budget, resulting in compromises.

Based on a true story, Million Dollar Arm’s script is by Thomas McCarthy, whose writing and directing credits include The Station Agent, The Visitor and Win Win. This effort provides neither intense drama nor spontaneous good humour. As viewers, we can see the culture clashes coming miles before they occur in the film. Romantic scenes between JB and Brenda are patchy. Yes, we do see the seedier side of the ‘game’, with stars and managers using questionable tactics to strike deals. Nothing eye-opening, but just confirms how big stake sports are run. Almost all characters are archetypal, particularly J.B. and Brenda. Dialogue is generally disappointing, yet one interesting piece of dialogue conveys a lot: Explaining how their company went bankrupt, Ash tells J.B., “You went around bribing half of India!”

Jon Hamm’s previous film credits include Friends with Kids, Bridesmaids, The Town, Sucker Punch, Howl, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Ira & Abby, Kissing Jessica Stein and We Were Soldiers, but in his lead debut, MDA, he is out of sorts. Lake Bell ('In a World..., Black Rock), has been compared with Carole Lombard. There is something about her, to be sure, but that elusive ‘x factor’ is wasted in a motor-mouth, sassy stereo-type that she essays here. Aasif Mandvi's co-wrote and starred in Today’s Special, a ‘Tandoori comedy’ (2010). Other films include The Internship, It's Kind of a Funny Story, Margin Call, Premium Rush and Dark Horse. Mandvi is the saving grace of the film. Although he disappears for a major part of the film, he strikes you as real and sincere.

Suraj Sharma (Life of Pi), who has learnt music and karate, is currently attending New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, and resides in India and New York City. Nothing that he might have learnt from Ang Lee is visible here. His performance varies between passable, below par and artificial. Madhur Mittal (Salim of Slumdog Millionaire) has the good fortune of shooting a significant part of this film in his native Agra. Madhur started acting as a child and now has impressive muscles to show off. Performance-wise, MDA is no ‘six-pack’. Both he and Suraj look lost for most part of the film. True, they are supposed to be kind of lost anyway, but cinematically, they come across as uni-dimensional, which can happen if you are well-informed and up-to-date in real-life but are asked to play ignorant bumpkins, without sufficient acting acumen.

Alan Arkin (now 80) won encomiums for Little Miss Sunshine (2006), but is best remembered by many Indian as the killer in Wait Until Dark. Oddballs are always fun to watch (remember Lee Marvin as the permanently drunk gunslinger in Cat Ballou? And what about Arkin himself in The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming?). There is an interesting twist to his sarcastic, cynical character in the second half. Pitobash (I am Kalam, Shanghai), a Film and Television Institute of India, Pune, acting diploma-holder, is cast as a Mumbai-based aspiring baseball coach with very little knowledge about the game, but a great willingness to learn. Though the role is ill-defined, he gets under the skin, and is able to carry of gaffes with dead-pan naturalness. MDA is his Hollywood debut. Darshan Jariwala is another Indian with a noticeable role, half-a-caricature, nevertheless.

Oscar-winners A. R. Rahman (music) and Resul Pookutty (sound design) are have re-teamed for this film. The sound-track is punctuated with numbers from Slumdog Millionaire, Shakalaka Boom Boom and, surprise, a South Indian dance/prayer invocation piece on the Disney logo itself.

Some true stories need painstaking research and careful reworking to translate into effective cinema. MDA has missed a few tricks, and projects more body than soul.

Rating: **

Trailer: http://video.disney.com/watch/trailer-million-dollar-arm-4edfc5115edc816dc4b15eca