FILM FRENZY

Michael Cash in You Gotta Believe (Photos: Well Go USA)

By Matt Brunson

YOU GOTTA BELIEVE
★★½ (out of four)
DIRECTED BY Ty Roberts
STARS Luke Wilson, Greg Kinnear

Based on a true story, You Gotta Believe is a movie about a baseball team that mostly makes all the wrong moves before turning the corner and blossoming into something accomplished and entertaining. The same can be said for the film itself.

This underdog sports drama hails from director Ty Roberts, scripter Lane Garrison, and star Luke Wilson, the trio who previously collaborated on 2021’s 12 Mighty Orphans (reviewed here). That one was also based on a true Texas tale, but its inspirational overtures never could emerge from under the weight of all the clichés that have long been baked into such sports yarns. You Gotta Believe doesn’t exactly traffic in originality, but it’s the superior picture thanks to a more vivid shooting style, a stronger starting line-up, and a genuine emotional pull that homers at the end.

The movie centers around the 2002 Fort Worth, Texas, Little League team that, as the film begins, looks about as competent as the Bad News Bears before Tatum O’Neal showed up. After their official season ends, they’re selected to be the practice punching bag for all the league’s finest teams — naturally, they push past their limitations and are soon standing toe-to-toe with the Little League World Series heavyweights. Can they go all the way?

I won’t answer that here, but let it be known that there’s a reason beyond pluckiness and perseverance that they’re able to keep playing it forward. It’s not because of head coach Jon Kelly (Greg Kinnear), who’s initially too consumed with his position at a law firm to provide much guidance. Instead, it’s because of his best friend and unofficial assistant coach Bobby Ratliff (Wilson). Ratliff is the team’s biggest fan, and it doesn’t hurt that one of his own sons, Robert (Michael Cash), is one of its key players. Bobby is a loving husband (Sarah Gadon plays his wife Patti) and adoring father (Joaquin Roberts portrays his other son Peanut), and he’s also about to walloped with the news that he has cancer. It appears to be terminal, but Robert believes that as long as he and his teammates keep winning, all will turn out OK.

You Gotta Believe gets off to a rocky start, having trouble sparking its predictable storyline and relying a bit too much on cornball sitcom humor — when Peanut spies his parents kissing and gasps something like, “I’m scarred for life!” you half-expect canned laughter to punctuate the scene. But as the particulars of the personal story come into focus — and, more importantly, as the personalities of the various kids come into play — the movie begins to hit its stride.

It’s extremely difficult to make an effective tearjerker — just ask Kinnear, who was the one perpetually poised to drop dead in 2010’s The Last Song, a Nicolas Sparks banality co-starring Miley Cyrus — so you gotta give You Gotta Believe credit for striking when it matters most. Even those who withstand the movie’s sentiment for the vast majority of its running time just might be inclined to adjust those tear ducts accordingly come the final inning.

(You Gotta Believe is now in theaters.)