Blu-ray Movie Reviews

Million Dollar Arm thankfully falls into that welcome category of sports movies that don’t demand a love of sports in order to click with audiences. Based on a true story, it introduces us to J.B. Bernstein (Jon Hamm), partner at a small sports agency in desperate need of a break, lest their doors close forever. He decides to think globally and soon cooks up The Big Idea: to hold a well-publicized contest in India with the intention of converting a cricket bowler into a baseball pitcher, with a seven-figure prize at stake. J.B. will secure some undiscovered talent, bring his winners home, and teach them the good old American pastime. Simple, right?

The smooth-talking cynic travels across the globe from his base in Los Angeles and is met with the requisite culture shock. Eventually, he plucks a pair of beyond-naïve young athletes from their broods and returns with these two potential players, Dinesh and Rinku, plus one aspiring coach in tow, but that’s where his real journey begins. Their shared struggle to meet the terms of the underlying business arrange- ment and still do right by all involved is fraught with drama—and no shortage of colorful characters. No one does surrogate families like screenwriter Tom McCarthy (Up, Win Win, The Visitor), who zeroes in on the heart of this family-friendly tale, its only sin a possible surplus of sentimentality.

The 2.4:1 video master remains something of a conundrum. The routine close-ups of Hamm ably reveal his scruff and pores, both intimately familiar to Mad Men viewers. But while the location cinematography of India serves up a big Crayola box of lovely colors, it all seems to be shot a bit soft, with long cityscapes lacking the precise delineation I’ve seen in other international films.

Similarly, when the music is mixed loud for dramatic effect, it carries substantial bass and does a fine job filling the room. And yet even in big crowd scenes, the surround channels in this tame DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack seem disappointingly restrained, so much so that I walked over and pressed my ear to the speakers to ensure that they were active at all. Dialogue is always clear, although it’s multilingual, so much of the movie is subtitled.

There are a handful of bonus features, all rather short. There’s an alternate ending, three cut scenes, plus a Digital Copy.

Blu-ray
Studio: Disney, 2014
Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
Audio Format: Dts-Hd Master Audio 5.1
Length: 124 Mins.
Mpaa Rating: PG
Director: Craig Gillespie
Starring: Jon Hamm, Pitobash, Suraj Sharma