Issue 20
Updated May 17, 2012
‘Perfect Game’ features Little League heroes
By Ann E. Yeager
Gazette Movie Reviewer
info@acadianagazette.com
Rated PG for some thematic elements
Starring Clifton Collins, Jr., Cheech Marin, Jake T. Austin
Directed by William Dear
Local baseball fans most certainly remember Lafayette’s amazing win against Pearland, Texas, in the Southwest Regionals in Waco, Texas, last August.
The team’s win escorted them into the Little League World Series in South Williamsport, Penn., where they ended their pursuit for the title with a respectable loss in quarterfinal competition.
Starring in Image Entertainment’s “The Perfect Game” are, from left, Jake T. Austin, Clifton Collins Jr., Moises Arias, Mario Quinonez, Jansen Panettiere, Cheech Marin and Emilie de Ravin. Photo by Vivian Zink
The difference in this baseball story, however, reveals an incredible journey for nine young Hispanic boys from Monterrey, Mexico, who, in the beginning of their birth as a team, had never even seen a baseball before.
Based on a true story, the film shows how these boys win the Little League World Series as the first non-American champions in history.
The movie takes place in the 1950s, when baseball was especially big in America, but also steeped in prejudice against players from different races. The obstacles these boys face in even playing in America, much less earning a chance to win in high-level play, are enormous. Even finding a coach and a place to have practices in their dusty little town is a tough challenge.
When Cesar Faz, (Clifton Collins Jr., “Star Trek”), a man once associated with the St. Louis Cardinals, reluctantly takes on these underdogs in Monterrey, he uses discipline and hard work to teach them the fundamentals of baseball.
The determined hearts of these impoverished boys take their love for the game into unchartered territory, and both young and old baseball fans will surely appreciate their difficult but triumphant journey.