Million Dollar Arm

Plot: Struggling agent JB is going broke so he and friend Amit (Pitobash) create a contest to give an cricket player from India a trial with a US baseball team. JB goes to India, has tryouts, brings back two players, Rinku (Suraj Sharma) and Minesh (Madhur Mittal). They start out badly but improve. Meanwhile JB starts a relationship with his cute tenant Brenda (Lake Bell.) [imdb]    [photos]

Review: There isn't much drama, and the action is slow. Good sports movies are full of suspense, but they never play a baseball game. Players Sharma and Mittal are not very interesting characters. 

The best part were the business scenes when Jon Hamm made sales pitches to clients -- its just like Mad Men. The second best was the love story with Brenda. Brenda had some interesting dialog with JB. Million Dollar Arm didn't have enough Jon Hamm and Lake Bell, and too much baseball. 

Visually, there were some interesting travelog scenes in India -- they call it poverty-porn. There were a few pop Indian songs that I liked, but not enough to look up on iTunes. 

This is supposed to be a charming, feel-good story about likable amateurs getting to the pros, but the amateurs were not that engaging, and the baseball action was never suspenseful.  

Cast: Jon Hamm, Pitobash, Suraj Sharma, Madhur Mittal, Lake Bell, Alan Arkin, Bill Paxton

Directed by: Craig Gillespie

Rating: 1.5 stars: I just wasn't that in to it. 

More: True stories are not usually as good as fictional ones. 

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