Hardball

A low-rent sleazeball (Keanu Reeves) reluctantly coaches a Little League team of inner-city black kids; naturally, in the process he becomes a better person, they become a great team, and blah blah blah. Atrociously written by John Gatins, who needs to be sent back to Screenwriting School, and directed by Brian Robbins in sloppy, lurching fits and starts, the film is anything but “hard.” It’s softheaded and stupid, soggy with every cheap trick that shamelessness can think to play and ineptitude can fail to hide. At its heart is that sad cliche of self-congratulation, the noble white man riding to the rescue of imperiled blacks. Here, he’s not even that noble—he’s the scum of the earth, in fact—but he’s still good enough to save these black kids (most of them, anyway) from the ghetto.