Million Dollar Arm (2 stars out of 4)

Jon Hamm deserves better than he is given in this year's sports drama Million Dollar Arm. While it is certainly nice to see him in something other than a suit-and-tie in Mad Men, he is a better actor than what he is given here. Instead of playing an advertising executive he is playing a sports agent. If it weren't for the tinniest amount of fatigue and desperation in his voice, you could feasibly close your eyes and simply picture Hamm simply playing a less successful and less interesting version of Don Draper. This isn't to say that Hamm is bad in Million Dollar Arm. He is as good as the material calls for. While it is rather bad, Million Dollar Arm feels like we are watching a single A minor league baseball game. You don't feel robbed of your time but you know the game doesn't matter in the slightest.

JB (Jon Hamm) is at a low part in his career as a sports agent. All the talent he scouted and hired in the 1990s have since retired leaving his agency low on prospects and funds. His agency is consistently being outbid by the younger agents. One day while dejectedly watching TV, JB comes across a cricket match and notices how hard the bowlers are throwing the ball. He assumes that these Indian bowlers might be able to excel as pitchers playing American baseball. JB decides to put on an Indian reality show called "Million Dollar Arm" where the faster pitchers will compete for money and a chance at trying out for professional baseball teams. He starts training his two top prospects Rinku (Suraj Sharma) and Dinesh (Madhur Mittal) and finds out there is a difference in pitching amateur cricket and pitching for professional baseball. This is JB's last chance at reviving his career though and he will do whatever it takes to see this two boys succeed.

Million Dollar Arm is perfectly serviceable when it is sticking with the basic "from ghee to greatness" storyline. Sharma and Mittal are both charming actors and anytime we spend with them as they see how their success will help their family is great. The problem is that the story isn't as much about them as it is Hamm's JB. For the most part, JB is not a sympathetic character. He is constantly seen lounging around his gorgeous apartment with supermodels and we are expected to worry about how he is going to make ends meet. His interest in the contest and the prospects of his trainee pitchers is entirely selfish. When one of the players accidentally cuts his finger cooking dinner, JB is sent off into a rage because his meal-ticket was damaged. We want Rinku and Dinesh to succeed but we sort of hope that it has nothing to do with JB. That is not how you want to feel about your protagonist.

The supporting cast is mostly where Million Dollar Arm succeeds. While they are definitely not working with top-shelf work Lake Bell as the love interest and Aasif Mandvi as JB's partner are both nice to see. The best acting in the film belongs to Bill Paxton as a USC pitching trainer Tom House. He gives an uncharacteristically held-back performance as a calm but determined coach who has unorthodox methods to train his players. This film would have been improved greatly more time with House's training of Rinku and Dinesh and less on JB's selfishness and if he and Bell will get-together. This is a baseball movie that would be been so much better if it had been more about baseball. Alan Arkin also does a decent job as a crotchety baseball scout. By this point, Arkin can play these roles in his sleep and actually does in a few parts of this film. When his character is awake and present, he is a nice addition that the film could have done more with.

Far too often, the film devolves into creating conflict out of nothing. Like the aforementioned finger-cut, the script is trying to instill drama in weak instances. "Oh wow! The Indian boy ate too much pizza and is now sick!" "Uh oh! That guy didn't know the punch was spiked and is now drunk!" "The woman JB is interested in and who is interested in him as well has a boyfriend!" These conflicts are so stereotypical by this point that we don't care. Why does a film like this need to create conflict beyond the fact that these charming boys are having a difficult time transitioning into American baseball?

Million Dollar Arm is the kind of movie you will catch on cable TV in a few years while switching TV channels. It isn't necessarily a bad time but it isn't really anything you should give a second glance. It isn't the movie star-making turn for Hamm that Disney might have thought it would be but it doesn't necessarily tarnish anything. It is a slow-throw pitching machine. You see the ball coming from a ways away, hit it easily, but don't walk away with any sense of accomplishment.