Sonny Stano (Joe Manganiello) has been in prison 18 years. When he was young, he got into a fight and ended up killing a guy. To make matters worse, he had been a hot baseball prospect for the New York Yankees and as a result of his crime, he lost that chance. However, after being released from prison, he is given a chance to work as an assistant coach for a minor league team. Amazingly, through this, he manages to impress his bosses and they decide to offer him a contract...as a player. But at 38, does Sonny stand a chance of making the majors? And, what about his life outside of ball...can he manage to create a good life for himself or is he destined to just do what many ex-cons do....end up back in the joint?
This is an interesting film since the love interest for Sonny is played by Sofia Vergara...Joe Manganiello's real life wife. As for Manganiello, his performance is VERY subdued and his character is not exacty a talkative guy. I know this will frustrate many viewers, though for an ex-con, his behavior was not unusual. Apart from Manganiello's very restrained performance, I also think some viewers probably disliked the ending...which is very vague and anything but what you'd expect. I didn't mind this at all..and liked how the story concluded.
Overall, the film isn't perfect but it does offer something I really like....it's different. The film generally avoids the usual cliches and the story is engaging.
By the way, Sonny plays for the Staten Island Empires...which is supposed to be a farm club for the Yankees. In reality, the farm club in Staten Island is also called the Yankees...not the Empires.
