The Hill

Last night I went to see The Hill because I am a sucker for a good underdog sports story (it was the second one in two days).  Unfortunately, this one is not good.  Rickey Hill, the son of a poverty-stricken itinerant pastor, has a degenerative spinal disease that requires him to wear leg braces as a child (played by Jesse Berry) but he is a phenom at hitting a baseball and dreams of playing in the major league.  His father James Hill (Dennis Quaid) believes that it is God's will that he follow in his footsteps and become a preacher but Rickey believes that it is God's will that he play baseball and he (played as a teen by Colin Ford) eventually becomes a star on his high school team.  However, he must overcome a debilitating injury that requires surgery and the disapproval of his father for a chance to try out for an MLB scout.  Hill's story is compelling and inspirational and I actually enjoyed the messages about faith (it isn't as heavy-handed as I expected it to be) and perseverance so I really wish that the telling of it was better.  It uses a linear timeline with all of the predictable beats of a traditional biopic (which doesn't always bother me if there is some other element to keep my attention) so the pacing becomes very sluggish at times.  I also found the climactic reconciliation between father and son that I had been waiting for throughout the whole movie to be incredibly disappointing because Pastor Hill confesses the error of his ways to his congregation rather than to Rickey.  Most of the supporting characters are one-dimensional, the dialogue is hackneyed, and the score is emotionally manipulative.  The performances range from bland at best to cringe-worthy at worst and Quaid, who I usually really like, is almost laughably bad with a permanent scowl on his face (a school yard bully with a comical grimace as he tries to strike Rickey out in a pick-up game is almost as bad).  The only dynamic presence on the screen is Scott Glenn in a cameo as the curmudgeonly scout Red Murff.  I really wanted to love this but, alas, I didn't and I can't really recommend it.