The Comrades of Summer

Another one of those baseball movies that appear on movie channels in the middle of summer, "Comrades of Summer" is an enjoyable story. Sparky Smith, the successful player-manager of the Mariners, is released and ends up getting another gig as the coach of the Russian National team. Here, he must band together athletes from other sports. Eventually, somehow, they end up playing in the states in a battle for the pride of both team and manager. It's very predictable, it doesn't feature ridiculously awesome baseball action, and it's not particularly memorable, but it's very much an entertaining baseball film. Don't watch and expect "The Natural" or anything, but watch it like you would "Angels in the Outfield."

It's funny: most users take this movie for baseball. Me, i take it for glasnot & perestroika. This kind of movie is actually dead because it was then unbelievable coproductions between US-USSR. After decades of cold war, Old west was discovering soviets and soviets were discovering the west. In that special period, Natalya Negoda was the most charming ambassador import export ever and the main reason i spent months tracking this movie. So instead of baseball, it could have been soccer or waterpolo, i don't care. It's true that the movie is not really good. The story and characters are not well stuffed and watching it is a bit painful. I found the bed scene between Natalya & Mantegna totally useless and totally misplaced. But americans are not more founding father and their mores have degraded. But Natalya has done so few movies that even a bad one with her is still a good one for me.

Overly simplistic by the books plot sinks what could have been a winner. Joe Mantegna plays way out of character, but is still alright as the manager of a misfit Russian baseball team. Think Billy Bob Thornton in "Bad News Bears". The Russian accents are hard to understand, and some of the supposed humor is lost in translation. The romantic sub plot is weak, and the baseball games are really staged. Michael Lerner does a pretty good George Steinbrenner imitation, and Mark Rolston is totally wasted behind his accent. This is watchable, but lacks credibility. As far as comedy, there are a couple of chuckles, but that's about it. - MERK

This was an average film, nothing special. As a baseball fan, I was hoping for something a little better. The main problem, to me, was the lead character being unlikable. Joe Mantegna played manager "Sparky Smith," and I was surprised on the mouth on him for a made-for-TV movie, so it must have been for HBO or similar.

"Sparky" is a fish-out-of-water culturally, trying to make it with baseball in Russia after losing his managerial job with the Seattle Mariners. With the story about making a bunch of players out of a diverse group of athletes and then coming back to the States to play, you know it's going to have a predictable ending. The question is, how much fun can the viewer have along the way watching how the team develops. Frankly, I didn't have that much fun because of Mantegna's character.

It reminded me too much of Tom Selleck's role as the obnoxious American ballplayer trying to cope in Japan. I didn't him, either. I guess I am sentimental guy, preferring the nice guys like "Roy Hobbs" of "The Natural."

After a career ending accident, baseball player/manager Sparky Smith (Joe Mantegna) ends up in Moscow coaching the nascent Soviet Olympic baseball team, only to find out that his players are an ill-equipped, underfunded, and unenthusiastic grab-bag of rejects from other sports. The film follows a typical 'sports movie' trajectory: Act 1 is the 'fish out of water' shtick, as Sparky struggles with Russian culture and athletic priorities, Act 2 finds the team coalescing, learning mutual respect, and facing their first challenge as the threat of disbandment hangs over them, and Act 3 is the 'big game' (or series in this case) where everything has to come together despite insurmountable odds. Superimposed on this is an obligatory awkward romance as Sparky pursues Tanya (Natalya Negoda), a beautiful Soviet sports functionary who, needless-to-say, initially wants nothing romantic to do with the pushy American capitalist and, not unexpectedly, there's a montage midway to show how rapidly the team is coming together. None of this predictability takes away from the fun. The cast is fine, especially John Fleck as Milov, the Russian hustler who masterfully plays the black-market to obtain the sports-kit that the government fails to provide (how Sparky's Walkman was eventually traded for an entire baseball backstop, including installation (plus two Walkmen) is quite funny). The film is full of good-natured digs at sports management, professional athletes and their hangers-on, cultural and linguistic misunderstandings (Tanya has a book of inaccurate American idioms written in Moscow) and the post-glasnost Russian 'line-up' economy, and ends on the expected 'feel-good' note (or notes, the writer seemed to want to tack on a number of cliched final scenes). The film was a low-budget affair made for HBO and the 'late Soviet' era it depicts is long gone, but I found it to be a surprisingly entertaining entry into the 'sports comedy' canon. *Aka 'The Balls of Summer' but 'The Comrades of Summer' is the title under which I found the film on You-Tube.