Million Dollar Arm: A gently inspiring tale

Million Dollar Arm
Starring: Jon Hamm, Aasif Mandvi, Bill Paxton, Suraj Sharma, Lake Bell, Alan Arkin
Rated: 6/10
Inspirational sports films are a genre in themselves, moreso if they are based on real characters — like the ones the Million Dollar Arm propels — and even more so if such rags to riches athletes come from a poverty-stricken and tumultuous India.
A truck driver’s son and a lad from a non-descript village in the belly of India pitch the ball well enough to win a reality show and a chance to go to America and play some baseball in a professional team.
The hundred thousand sights and sounds of India, viewed by a foreigner, are engagingly depicted in the film where a baseball marketing agent comes to scout for two pitchers who can save his company from going kaput. The interwoven love story, the quirks of a callow Indian in America and a callower American in India, the wry humour of well informed coaches, the humility and inborn servility of aspiring baseball veterans in India and everything around a chaotic reality show is captured to the T by the director. The film keeps your interest buds afire. 
Source: Sunday Pioneer, 11 May, 2014

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