Is it kosher to have Hamm play a Jew?

May 15, 2014

Million Dollar Arm (2014) PosterJon Hamm of Mad Men fame plays the lead role of JB Bernstein in the new baseball film Million Dollar Arm (although I notice on the IMDB page that the character’s last name isn’t included. Hmmm).

MDA is based on the true story of a contest whereby two young athletes from India try to get signed by a Major League team.

Sports agent Bernstein has been burned by his marquee client and has to look for the “next big thing,” coming up with this idea after seeing a cricket match on TV.

As you can grok from the trailer, this is a fish-out-of-water story, against-all-odds story, perfect for Disney, which also release The Rookie — also based on a true story about an older pitcher making a million-to-one shot — in 2002.

Lines like, “This is Major League baseball, not some social experiment,” “Their chances…fall between slim and none.” And lots of stock characters, including the crusty expert (Alan Arkin) who only has to listen to the sound of the pitch to know the real deal (didn’t Clint Eastwood do this already in Trouble With the Curve as a veteran scout who was slowly losing his sight? And an assistant (Aasif Mandvi) who’s over-the-top enough to be a Disney cartoon sidekick.

There are a number of ESPN personalities in the film, which I guess is to be expected given the ESPN-Disney relationship. I always find it funny that these guys, most of whom are on TV on a regular basis, do such a wooden job when it comes to portraying themselves in films.

Anyway, I’ll see MDA because, well, baseball.

Here’s a promo which includes the real JB Bernstein:

And an episode of ESPN’s Outside the Lines which featured the original MDA story:

0Shares

Comments on this entry are closed.

Previous post:

Next post:

script type="text/javascript"> var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-5496371-4']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })();