Joe Torre - Uma Vida de Sucesso

I'm surprised that "Joe Torre: Curveballs Along the Way" never became a camp classic. It's laughable bad at times. Paul Sorvino spends most of the movie walking around in moping around with a puss on his face. Robert Loggia spends most of the movie walking around with his hand over chest. "Curveballs Along the Way" uses stock footage of Yankee games in a very poor way. It uses the fake sports talk phone calls in an even worse way. The biggest problem with the movie is the subject matter. Sorvino is stuck playing Torre as some kind of super wise baseball genius which he was not. He was just in the right place at the right time. Honorable mention: the nice performance by Isaiah Washington.

This was a baseball movie I thought I'd never get a chance to see: a TV movie that's never on TV and has, as far as I know, never been released on video. So imagine my delight when I saw this available on VoD, and for only $1.95! It can't suck that bad, right?

It doesn't. I don't disagree with the other comments here. Yes, the video inserts during actual game footage are jarring, but they're somehow not distracting. (The technique of combining documentary footage with scripted performances was used more successfully in AFTER THE SHOCK - another television movie with a baseball connection.) And the on-field re-enactments are unconvincing, though I've yet to see a baseball movie with authentic-looking game action.

Most of the actors acquit themselves here. Steinbrenner got more believable as the movie progresses - so much that I stopped thinking of the "Seinfeld" caricature. Paul Sorvino took a moment to get used to, but was probably the best casting choice possible. And Robert Loggia does sorta look like Frank Torre (while unfortunately sounding exactly like Robert Loggia).

What about the players? They're more hit-and-miss. Doc seemed the most accurate, and I also approved of the actor who portrayed Joe Girardi. Boggs wasn't awful, either.

But where did they get Strawberry and O'Neill? Neither was believable on or off the field, and neither physically resembled their real-life counterparts in the slightest.

If you live in the New York area or have read Joe Torre's autobiography "Chasing the Dream," there's nothing in this movie you don't already know. We're all familiar with Torre's professional history before coming to the Yankees, and Gooden's past, and Coney's medical problems, and the Jeffrey Maier incident. Everyone else may be confused about what's going on, since the movie is not very informative and suffers from choppy editing. But I did appreciate some minor details throughout, like what a pitching coach actually does and Boggsy's bad memories of the '86 World Series. And the many clips of the '96 Yankees season (good and bad) are always great to see again.

CURVEBALLS ALONG THE WAY is not the worst baseball movie ever made (try watching a MAJOR LEAGUE sequel, or STEALING HOME, or THE SLUGGER'S WIFE). It ain't even the worst Yankee movie out there, as anyone who's suffered through THE SCOUT can attest.

As a Yankee fan, as a Torre fan, as a Gooden fan I have to say this movie was awful. I looked forward to seeing it as I attended many of the games of the 1996 season, but it was dreadful. The close ups to game footage shots made my skin crawl. This should be an easy favorite for "Worst 100 of all time"

There might be a baseball movie out there that can rival how bad this one is, but I doubt it. For such great actors cast in some of the parts, I was sorely disappointed by the performances. The cinematography was poor, going from shots during a game that were obviously on a sound stage to crowd shots from any baseball broadcast. They would purposely do close up shots so you wouldn't see that nobody was actually there. Just not believable at all. I couldn't suspend my disbelief at all. Blech!

Paul Sorvino does a decent job playing Joe Torre, but his performance cannot overcome the low budget look and feel the movie had.

The movie re-enacted a fight scene in a game that the Yankees played on the road in Seattle. Up until a week ago (6/27/99) the Mariners played their home games at the Kingdome, inside and on artificial turf. The fight scene in Seattle takes place outdoors with sunlight and on grass!

In scenes that took place during games, different filming techniques were used to make these scenes appear as though they were taken from televised footage. It looks like the intent was to seamlessly integrate that with actual game footage to give the appearance that the combination of the two came from the same broadcast. It wasn't effective; the end result being that the package was more "seamy" than it would have been otherwise.

The actors who depicted actual ballplayers were overall not very authentic. Only the actor who played Dwight Gooden and the actor who played Mariano Duncan were even halfway convincing. The actor playing David Cone looked like a person that had never played baseball who was trying to act like a baseball player.

Baseball fans are sticklers for details. To make a successful baseball movie, you have to take the time to make sure the details are right. Use authentic jerseys and at least try to duplicate the appearance of a game venue accurately if you can't use the actual venue itself. Get actors who know how to act and talk like baseball players.