This weekend at the home of BMaF, Mrs Barking Mad chose our choice of film for our now usual Sunday night ritual. And what a cracker she chose in Disney’s Million Dollar Arm.
Star of one of our favourite TV shows ‘Mad Men’ Jon (Donald Draper) Hamm stars as JB who has left his relatively safe sports agent job to go it alone with his friend Aash (Aasif Mandvi), but their one last big client caleld Popo, has gone to another well known sports agent who can get him a huge signing on fee
JB & Aash business is now at major risk of going bankrupt with no other players on their books to keep business afloat. They need a money making idea and suddenly by flicking through the TV channels, JB comes across India playing cricket & Susan Boyle winning Britain’s got Talent, an idea is formed
Going to Chang (played by Tzi Ma) a big investor, a deal is made to turn an Indian cricketer into a MBL (Major Baseball League) player via a TV talent show ‘The Million Dollar Arm’ (relating to the prize money that will be won if winner secures a professional contract!)
It is easy to see why investors would go for such an idea, if Baseball could appeal to India, it would bring in millions of new viewers who would spend their money to watch the game & get the merchandise!!
Comparisons will of course be made to the other sports agent film ‘Jerry Maguire’ starring BMaF favourite Tom Cruise
This film has the added bonus of taking us on the talent show process through India where we learn that if you can hit a cricket bat well you are not just as likely to be able to hit a baseball bat, the 2 chosen players (Rinku (Suraj Sharma) & Dinesh (Madhur Mittal) to go to America to stand the chance of winning the big prize in fact come from an athletics background
During the talent show process, humour is injected via non playing but baseball loving Amit (played by Pitobash) and as the old pro Ray, who can be woken from his slept from a good bat hit, Alan Arkin. Once are 2 players make it to US we have more fun too as they are overwhelmed by everything from lifts to pizzas, and also they discover alcohol at a party too!
Other supporting cast include Bill Paxton as Tom, the US coach to train our 2 Indian hopefuls prior to their big trial try out & Lake Bell as Brenda, JB’s neighbour and the film’s love interest
Jon Hamm is fantastic in the title role as we see him go from being all about the money to all about the player as he learns to open up and care for the interests of our 2 hopefuls on this journey
In addition the film has a fantastic soundtrack over seen by legendary Indian composer A.R. Rahman
Sure the film has a couple of issues,The film only takes us to the trial try outs so maybe missed out on the big game debut and it would have been nice to see PoPo regret his decision to follow the money & not the man but this is a true story so we know that was always unlikely to happen
That being said we urge you to find this film out, we can not recommend it enough
In fact at present it’s just £3 for the DVD from Amazon so you may want to buy it instead and watch it over and over again. You can buy it here: http://amzn.to/1h1Oe5h
Have you seen the film, what did you think? We’d love to hear from you below
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