Movie Review
North Texas Little League team swings for fences in You Gotta Believe
Michael Cash and cast of You Gotta Believe.
Making an inspiring sports movie is not a complicated formula. There are plenty of examples of teams, professional or not, that have overcome the odds to achieve success, either on the field of play or in life in general. While some tweaking is natural to create a little extra drama, usually filmmakers just need to do a decent recreation of real events and the story takes care of itself.
That ability would seem to be beyond the scope of director Ty Roberts and writer Lane Garrison, who have attempted to tell two Fort Worth-centric stories in a row: 2021’s 12 Mighty Orphans and now You Gotta Believe. This one is about the 2002 Westside Little League team that captured the country’s attention by making an improbable run to the Little League World Series, the first time a Fort Worth team had made it that far since 1960.
As the film tells it, the team was one of the worst in the league but was chosen to compete in the postseason tournament for financial reasons. The team was led by coaches Bobby Ratliff (Luke Wilson) and Jon Kelly (Greg Kinnear), both of which had sons on the team. When Bobby is diagnosed with melanoma, the team dedicates their run to him, and somehow starts playing better than they’ve ever played before.
The story gives off the vibes of past youth-centered baseball movies, especially The Sandlot, which the filmmakers try to capitalize on by casting that film’s Patrick Renna (aka Ham) in a small role. Among the players are a geeky know-it-all, a preening guy who cares more about looking good than playing well, and a star whose life doesn’t always allow him to play for the team. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t have the same charm as similar films and spends much less time letting the players shine than you might think.
Instead, the stories of the coaches are given equal, if not more, attention to anything the players are doing on the field. In the case of Bobby, that’s understandable, especially since his illness served as an inspiration for the team. But the level of detail Roberts and Garrison give to his treatment (and, for some reason, Jon’s unhappiness in his own work) is odd. Even worse, they don’t do an effective job at creating the emotional drama such an experience should generate.
Things don’t get much better when they do turn to the baseball action. The editing of the games/practices is heavy, to the point that it’s unclear if any of the kid actors can actually play or not. But the worst sin is that the filmmakers fail to convey the excitement of what the team was accomplishing. Only the final game of their run has any momentum to it at all, which the filmmakers try to sabotage by inserting a moment that insults the intelligence of any baseball fan.
Wilson (who also starred in 12 Mighty Orphans) and Kinnear remain solid screen presences, making the film watchable even when the story being told is not. Sarah Gadon and Molly Parker play their wives, and they too are interesting to watch. The child actors have varying levels of experience, and although none of them stand out, neither do they take away from the film.
You Gotta Believe should have been a great showcase for Fort Worth (although only certain scenes were actually filmed there) and the team that did the city proud over 20 years ago. Instead, it’s an ineffectual sports movie that doesn’t do them justice, a real shame given the heart that the real story has.
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You Gotta Believe is now playing in theaters. Check out red-carpet photos from the film's world premiere in Fort Worth here.
