Viking Night: Major League
By Bruce Hall
November 24, 2015
BoxOfficeProphets.com
But before we get into all that, let's establish that this is the story of the Cleveland Indians baseball club. It's the perfect scenario, because any movie that takes place in Cleveland has GOT to be a hard luck story. And in this case, the Indians have gone 34 years without a championship. The fan base is unhappy, the players are dejected, and the owner was so done with things that he up and dropped dead. The Indians have fallen on hard times in an unprecedented way, and there seems to be little hope for the future. Maybe it's that racist logo.
Anyway, the team is taken over by the owner's widow. She's a gold digging former showgirl who knows nothing about baseball, but is wily enough to have worked out a sweetheart deal with the city of Miami to relocate the team to a new stadium. And, there might be some pretty sweet personal perks in it for her, too. But to get out of the team's lease in Cleveland, they need attendance to drop to junior high pep rally levels. She decides that the only way to do this is to tank the season. So, the Indians invite a bunch of lowlifes to training camp and hire a nobody to manage the club.
Her game is to make the team so bad she can take the team to South Beach and work on her tan.
The new team arrives at camp, within minutes of each other. There's Jake Taylor (Tom Berenger), a washed up former all-star catcher with bad knees and an even worse drinking problem. Pedro Cerrano (Dennis Haysbert), is a Cuban player who practices voodoo, more or less confining him to the role of walking stereotype for the duration of the film. Roger Dorn (Corbin Bernsen), is a self-absorbed prima donna who couldn't catch a cold but can hit the ball into low orbit. Then there's Willie Mays Hayes (Wesley Snipes), a fast talking speedster who is pretty much Wesley Snipes.
And of course, there's Ricky “Wild Thing” Vaughn (Charlie Sheen), a sullen iconoclast who is 100 percent tiger blood and Adonis DNA on the pitcher's mound. The only problem is, he only throws fastballs. All of these guys have some major (but loveable) flaws either in their game or their character that have prevented them from accessing the hidden talent we all know they have inside. But can anything bring them together in time to make a title run and save the team? After a miserable camp, all these chuckleheads make the team. But while they think they're living the dream, little do they know, they've only been signed because they're expected to fail.
Naturally there's a love interest, because a wacky R-rated sports movie HAS to have a love interest. Taylor spots his ex-wife Lynn (Rene Russo) in a restaurant while celebrating his fortunes, and uses his newfound success to ply for her love, even though she's engaged to be married. More productively, he acts as mentor to Vaughn and as the moral center for the team. It's all part of the Template - as the leader of the clubhouse, Taylor's character arc mirrors that of the team. Things start out poorly, new hope presents itself, there's a major setback, but through dogged persistence and ribald tomfoolery, everyone learns a valuable lesson about teamwork and personal accountability.
Well, almost. I realize that the romance subplot is mandatory here, but Lynn makes it very clear that historically Taylor was not a very good husband. At the beginning of the film he's still a hard drinking, womanizing lothario, and doesn't get the idea in his head to patch things up with Lynn until he sees her with another man, three years after he last saw her. His solution to this is to dangle his incredibly tenuous job situation in front of her as evidence that he's changed. And when that doesn't work, he reads Moby Dick to impress her, and stalks the shit out of her until she agrees to listen to him talk about it.
These are not the actions of a rational (or particularly heroic) man.
But of course, this - like most sports movies - takes place in an alternate universe where a lifetime of complex physical skills can be mastered in the time it takes to watch a musical montage. And hunting down your ex-wife like an albino sperm whale is perfectly socially acceptable, provided your heart is in the right place. And make no mistake, everyone involved has their heart in the right place, and it's the core of what makes the movie work. Even that mouthy bastard Roger Dorn has a shred of humanity in him. And Charlie Donovan (Charles Cyphers), as the team's folksy, mustachioed manager, is only slightly less comforting than a Wilford Brimley oatmeal commercial.
And Charlie Sheen, in perhaps his best loved role, exudes an excess of that trademark boyish charm we all wish he still had the ability to access today.
So, maybe the love story is kind of stupid and creepy, but a sports flick needs a little something for everyone, right? Major League is the kind of immensely gratifying fantasy that most people want from a movie, and it delivers that consistently throughout its run time. There's no doubt as to how it's all going to work out, but goddammit - it's just so much FUN. Real baseball is only slightly less boring than watching your fingernails grow, but if even half the games were as much fun as the last act of Major League, nobody would need the National Football League. For a movie that shamelessly paints by the numbers, the numbers add up, and it's a pleasure well worth the ride.