The Perfect Game Review
By David Kempler
Far From Perfect
Garrett Morris uttering "Baseball been berry, berry good to me" jumped immediately into my brain while watching William Dear's, "The Perfect Game". It is the based-in-truth version of a group of young boys in Mexico, in 1957, who made a permanent mark on the Little League World Series.
The poverty-stricken kids from Monterrey, Mexico, under the guidance of Cesar (Clifton Collins Jr.), himself a victim of discrimination that may have prevented his having a career in the big leagues, achieve the impossible. They make it to the pinnacle of American Little League baseball. Along the way we are subjected to unending stereotypes of hard-working underdogs beating back evil. Among the worst of these is the wise and wonderful priest, Padre Esteban (Cheech Marin), tossing out bits of love and support.
To be fair, "The Perfect Game" will be a home run to young boys especially, and will capture the imaginations of many others who watch it, as long as they have the ability to look past the overly manipulative script by William Winokur.
I understand that in order to appeal to mainstream America, the film has to have English dialog instead of being accurately presented in Spanish. That is why I sighed halfway through, when the dialog switched to Spanish some of the time. That's silly. Either stick it out in phony English or use the correct language to begin with.
By the end, the audience gets what they want: the triumph of sweet, honest, hard-working folk over bigotry and obstacles. The best part of "The Perfect Game" is the final ten minutes, when Dear uses actual photos and exploits of the real kids. It made me think that this would have made a helluva documentary and could have been a damn good fictionalized version, too. Take the kids, who will love it, and try and overlook its faults.
