Movie Geek's Blog

Cast: Anthony Perkins, Karl Malden, Norma Moore

Directed by: Robert Mulligan

Fear Strikes out is the directorial début of Robert Mulligan. It is a sport biography of Jimmy Piershall; this film is about the rise, fall and rise of the former American Baseball center fielder.

The film starts with Jimmy as a kid working on his slides for his baseball games, while his father [Karl Malden] helped him with his practice. His father decided that the one and only goal of Jimmy’s life is to make it to the Boston Red Sox team. 10 minutes into the movie and we see a grown up Jimmy [Anthony Perkins] playing a baseball game in a small ground and with a little audience.

He was the best in the game in his small town of Waterbury, Connecticut. Scouts from Boston came down to watch him play, so as to sign him for Boston Red Sox trainings but even then, it was never good enough for his father. 

Not that he was a bad father, but he never had it easy. During the practice session in the first sequence of the movie, he was throwing the ball at little Jimmy with such an intensity that it was hurting Jimmy’s hands even though he wore a glove. When every one of his teammates was out celebrating for a game’s victory, Jimmy was not allowed to go as it would ruin his next morning’s practice session. 

Once he got selected for training with the Boston Red Sox, he met his future wife, Mary [Norma Moore] and when he proposes her, he is confused and psyched by his own decision, because he knows his father will not appreciate it and make it look like a “mistake which will affect his game”. His confusion and psych was shown in the hotel room scene when he is awaiting a call from Mary and gets angry at his neighbor because they were playing the radio too loud and there was a critical opinion on Piershall’s game on the radio. In my interpretation, it was making him weak to stand by his decision to marry Mary.

The pressure John Piershall puts on his son Jimmy is a lesson for parents of this era, when the world has reached to greater heights of competitiveness. The relentless pressure by Jimmy’s father affected his personality and pushed him on the verge of madness. 

Karl Malden as John Piershall, played the role of the obsessively driven father, who is not just working hard for Jim’s Career but literally believes that it’s always a shared dream. Jimmy usually tells “I did it”, but John maintains the ‘we’ part. It is always a Father-Son team for him and that’s why he is constantly pressuring him to improve, even when he actually needs to be acknowledged for the game he played.

Anthony Perkins have given a performance that might have prepared himself very well to play Norman Bates in the Hitchcock classic “Psycho” only 3 years later. He did some very intense scenes, that shown his capability to do dark characters. But the best performance of the film is by Karl Malden who equally shares not just the goals of Jimmy’s Life but this film.

Movie Geek's Rating: ★★★½

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I love the sports genre, every time there is a sports film announced, the movie enthusiast in me gets excited and prepares itself by watching and re-watching some of the greatest sports films. I particularly love it, sports film never disappointed me, whatever I have seen, I liked them all, and loved most of them. 

Now, this year can be a real treat for someone who loves cinema from the sports genre, because there is going to be two big releases in the sports genre in the months of April and May. I am gonna talk about the one which is going to release earlier.

This film is called Draft Day.

Kevin Costner is back with another sports film, he shifts his focus from Baseball to American Football this time. It is about the struggle, Sonny Weaver, the General Manager of the Cleveland Browns does to acquire the number one draft pick for his team. Sonny appears to be kind of a maverick, who has his stubborn but productive ways with the team. The cast includes Kevin Costner, Jennifer Garner, Tom Welling, Denis Leary and Frank Langella. 

Jennifer Garner is perhaps Kevin's love interest. Denis Leary plays the role for the coach of the club and Frank is playing the role of Harvey Molina, who owns the team. There is some cool soundtrack, the music is composed by John Debney. The trailer looks neat and I have big hopes from this film. This film is directed by Ivan Reitman and is set to a release for April 2014. 

Tomorrow, there will be another trailer preview for the bigger sports film, which I am most excited about.

-Amrit Rukhaiyaar

Kai Po Che is a screen adaptation of the fiction novel "The 3 Mistakes of my Life" written by Chetan Bhagat. It is directed by Abhishek Kapoor, the man who made Rock On . Rock On was a fabulous film, and Kai Po Che is definitely a good film.

Although I found the book quite ordinary, I loved the movie on the same story. Chetan Bhagat never made me realize the substance this book possessed. But the film maker surely succeeded in doing that in this movie adaptation.

Kai Po Che has many great scenes that keeps you craving for more, the screenplay moves at a mild speed but you never get bored. Almost everyone in the lead has acted well and the background score is another high point of the film. The music by Amit Trivedi is brilliant and carries the tone of the film.

Almost all the scenes are from the book but the reconstruction makes it look better. The real life incidents mentioned in the film are well mixed up with the fictitious characters. Some of the biggest issues/entities in India; cricket, politics and religion are depicted beautifully and carefully in Kai Po Che. 

The cast is inexperienced but talented, Abhishek Kapoor managed to extract something really extraordinary from the three of them. Sushant Singh Rajput steals the show, Raj Kumar Rao deliberately underplayed his part to perfection.

If you liked Dil Chahta Hai, Rang De Basanti, 3 Idiots, Zindagi na Milegi Dobara or any other coming of age story driven by a tale of friendship, then Kai Po Che is going to be another one on that list.