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HardballRating:
Release Date: 24 June, 2003 Retail Price: $9.98 OUR Price: $9.98 You SAVE: $0.00! Cast: Complete Cast (16 total) |
Hardball Reviews
Hitting Close to Home
As a Christian, I didn't like the foul language in the movie "Hardball". But sometimes, the world isn't perfect, and kids raised in the projects don't tend to talk the way kids from the suburbs talk.
For four years, I worked as the Management Information Systems Specialist for YMCA Child Welfare, a division of the Chicago YMCA which managed the cases of numerous foster children. (When I first started that job, we were managing the cases of about 950 kids, most of whom were African-American.)
For the first year or more, our offices were located in a long two-story cinderblock building just a block south of the ABLA housing projects, where "Hardball" was filmed. I didn't drive to work, I took the Roosevelt Road bus, and then walked the rest of the way. So I had plenty of chances, five days a week, to observe the kids who lived in the ABLA projects. And I have to say that I think that the movie portrayed them pretty accurately. If anything, it may have portrayed them a little bit too sympathetically.
Of course, I may be slightly biased on account of my experiences. One time, when walking to the bus stop after getting off work, I passed by a large group of ABLA kids, who were playing in the water from an open fire hydrant. (No, it's not legal for them to do so.) Naively, I thought they'd leave me alone. Instead, they surrounded me and started throwing buckets of water at me. Innocent fun, if I had been wearing a swimsuit at the time. Not so innocent, since I was dressed in my work clothes, and I had my bookbag of papers with me, and I was on my way to my second job at the time. (I had to call my boss at that job and tell her I wouldn't be able to make it to work that night.)
And then there was the time several little kids decided to start throwing rocks at me as I walked home from work one day. I wanted to remind them that rocks can do serious harm to people. (Just ask St. Stephen, the New Testament Christian who was stoned to death.) Fortunately, their aim was lousy, and none of their rocks hit me.
I'm a white man, and I think that it's pretty rare for kids in that neighborhood to see white guys, particularly white guys who are walking through their neighborhoods rather than driving. That may have made me seem like an attractive target.
CHA projects in Chicago are not typically good places to raise kids. When kids are surrounded by adults and teenagers who are involved in gang activities and other forms of antisocial behavior, it tends to rub off on them as well.
Hardball is by no means a great movie, but it seems to me that it's a pretty accurate depiction of what life in the projects is like for children.
The profanity used is the reality of the inner city children...
I chose to watch this movie for a class in college. Many people have dissaproved of this movie because of all the swearing. Needless to say, the words used by the boys on the baseball team are the exact words that the children raised in the inner city use. The movie is very realistic. I would recommend this movie...it is not a good idea for a younger child to watch it because the conditions in the neighborhood are very bad. The movie is sad but real!!!
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