Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) is a farmer who has always been a lifelong baseball fan and hears a voice in the corn field saying “if you build it, he will come.”
Ray then gets a vision to build a baseball field in the middle of his corn field. Once the field is up the voice stops, but a man appears on the field in a 1920s White Sox uniform and the man is Joe Jackson (Ray Liotta), and afterwards, a lot of deceased baseball players come back to play at his field and the voice appears again. Ray is now on the hunt to find out what this voice wants and what he has to do.
This is one of the best baseball movies in the sense of the overall story,a father and son who connected on America’s past time, and who have their relationship broken with the passing of Ray’s dad. It is a phenomenal story of searching for what your life is really about as well as how Ray is now a family man, learning how to raise his daughter but also trying to find out what his life means, and why he should keep going.
Costner does a great job playing Ray and how honest and caring he really is with his family and also with himself. Liotta is also really good in this film as the baseball player Shoeless Joe Jackson, even though there was not much to go off of based on how Joe talked and on that end, Liotta is just using his normal voice. Just when it came to the batting stances, and the hitting and the throwing, Liotta had that down cold. For a last performance for one of best actors I know, Burt Lancaster, any movie he is in whether good or bad, you never dislike his performance.
Lancaster gives a real raw emotion to Moon Light Gram, a once minor ball player who never turned pro all because he wanted to be a doctor. The directing in this film is really good to set the stage of what is happening in the film; the most eye-catching scenes in the film are the dusk scenes of Costner walking in the corn field. They are beautifully captured in a very elegant way of showing the sun going down and how the clouds have a purple hue to them.
In my eyes it represents that a change is coming in Ray’s life, with using the sky as the representation in something is changing in his own life. Overall this is a very special, tear jerking film, especially if you have a good connection with your father, then this film tugs at the heart strings. Everything is masterfully done, from filling the baseball scenes to filming the scenes of Ray going on his journey. As well as the final shot in the film; it is a great film.
I give this film a 10 overall; I give writing 9.5 gold bars; I give acting 9.5 gold bars; and directing 9.8 gold bars. I will see you the next time you want to come back to the movies.