The Final Season is like an ugly puppy. If you stand back and really look at it
sure, you can see that its legs are too short, its body too long, its eyes bug out a little and it's drooling on the carpet. But if you let it jump up and lick you in the face, it's just too darn lovable to care.
The movie is about the high school baseball team from Norway, Iowa which won its 19th state championship in 1990 but was facing a school merger that would make 1991 the last year for the school and the team. Sean Astin plays Kent Stock, who took over for legendary coach Jim Van Scoyoc (Powers Boothe) to try and lead the team to a 20th state title.
What will strike you most about The Final Season is how obviously in love the filmmakers are with that story and with the small town life in Iowa that gave birth to it. This wasn't a movie anyone made because they thought it would hit it big at the box office or win them any awards or critical praise. This is a film made because people just really wanted to share a story with the rest of the world. Which makes it very odd that they didn't really tell that story. Not the real story, anyway.
The Final Season takes Norway, Iowa and uses it as a backdrop for pretty generic and cliché-filled sports movie, one that could have come from the same copier that's been churning out "underdog fighting against incredible odds" sports movies for decades. The film is always gently fighting with itself. It wants to be about the little guy battling adversity, but that's not the story of the Norway Tigers. The end of Norway baseball was about greatness being thrown away because the world just doesn't have room for it anymore. The filmmakers brush up against that subject, but they either don't know how to really address it or they can't think beyond their own expectations of what a sports movie must be. Instead, they throw in a cliché-filled subplot of a big city kid moving to the country and learning lessons about life. They do try something different by making that big city kid thoroughly unlikeable for most of the movie, until they flip a magic movie switch and try to turn him into sort of the hero.
I say sort of, because the movie never really figures out who its hero really is. Sometimes it's Powers Boothe as the old leader passing down his wisdom, sometimes it's Sean Astin trying to live up to that legend and sometimes it's the big city kid absorbing wholesome Iowa values. It's only the actors giving such strong performances that keeps you involved as the movie plays Musical Heroes.
The performances are the most appealing thing in The Final Season. Boothe radiates gravity like an old-time movie star. Astin proves once again that if he wasn't 3 and 3/4 inches away from technically being a Little Person, he'd be one of the most sought after actors in Hollywood. He has the kind of decent, personable on screen persona that makes you want to watch him. That he can also act is a nice bonus. Unfortunately, the studios seem to only see him as too small for an action hero and not pretty enough for a leading man. I guess there's no one who remembers the passel of films and the boatloads of money that were made with a short, not terribly attractive guy named Mickey Rooney. It's easy to get a Rooney/Judy Garland vibe in those scenes where Astin acts with Rachel Leigh Cook, who herself looks like a beautiful woman who's been briefly exposed to a mad scientist's shrink ray.
Cook does everything she can with the typically thankless girlfriend role. She could have done a lot more as a state official sent to help sell the school merger to the residents of Norway, but the movie deals with the whole merger issue in a shallow, cartoonish fashion. Instead of engaging with the economic and social realities of small town schools and contracting budgets, it turns a Norway school administrator into a Snidely Whiplash-type villain who does bad things because he's a bad person.
I wish the makers of The Final Season had had the courage Sylvester Stallone had when he made the original Rocky. Despite what you may misremember, Rocky wasn't about an underdog overcoming the odds. It was about the degeneration of the American Dream. Rocky was a guy with talent but he never got the opportunity America is supposed to be all about until it was too late for him to do anything with it. Rocky realizes he can't win the fight and make millions of dollars and live happily ever after. All he wants is to be able to look in the mirror and know he's more than just another "bum from the neighborhood". The original Rocky isn't about being a winner. It's about what it means to not be a loser. That's the sort of bold, creative impulse I wish the makers of The Final Season had reached out for.
But they didn't. What they did is give us a pleasant, family-friendly film about good people trying to do something great. It's a lovable, enjoyable movie if you don't look hard at it.
The movie is about the high school baseball team from Norway, Iowa which won its 19th state championship in 1990 but was facing a school merger that would make 1991 the last year for the school and the team. Sean Astin plays Kent Stock, who took over for legendary coach Jim Van Scoyoc (Powers Boothe) to try and lead the team to a 20th state title.
What will strike you most about The Final Season is how obviously in love the filmmakers are with that story and with the small town life in Iowa that gave birth to it. This wasn't a movie anyone made because they thought it would hit it big at the box office or win them any awards or critical praise. This is a film made because people just really wanted to share a story with the rest of the world. Which makes it very odd that they didn't really tell that story. Not the real story, anyway.
The Final Season takes Norway, Iowa and uses it as a backdrop for pretty generic and cliché-filled sports movie, one that could have come from the same copier that's been churning out "underdog fighting against incredible odds" sports movies for decades. The film is always gently fighting with itself. It wants to be about the little guy battling adversity, but that's not the story of the Norway Tigers. The end of Norway baseball was about greatness being thrown away because the world just doesn't have room for it anymore. The filmmakers brush up against that subject, but they either don't know how to really address it or they can't think beyond their own expectations of what a sports movie must be. Instead, they throw in a cliché-filled subplot of a big city kid moving to the country and learning lessons about life. They do try something different by making that big city kid thoroughly unlikeable for most of the movie, until they flip a magic movie switch and try to turn him into sort of the hero.
I say sort of, because the movie never really figures out who its hero really is. Sometimes it's Powers Boothe as the old leader passing down his wisdom, sometimes it's Sean Astin trying to live up to that legend and sometimes it's the big city kid absorbing wholesome Iowa values. It's only the actors giving such strong performances that keeps you involved as the movie plays Musical Heroes.
The performances are the most appealing thing in The Final Season. Boothe radiates gravity like an old-time movie star. Astin proves once again that if he wasn't 3 and 3/4 inches away from technically being a Little Person, he'd be one of the most sought after actors in Hollywood. He has the kind of decent, personable on screen persona that makes you want to watch him. That he can also act is a nice bonus. Unfortunately, the studios seem to only see him as too small for an action hero and not pretty enough for a leading man. I guess there's no one who remembers the passel of films and the boatloads of money that were made with a short, not terribly attractive guy named Mickey Rooney. It's easy to get a Rooney/Judy Garland vibe in those scenes where Astin acts with Rachel Leigh Cook, who herself looks like a beautiful woman who's been briefly exposed to a mad scientist's shrink ray.
Cook does everything she can with the typically thankless girlfriend role. She could have done a lot more as a state official sent to help sell the school merger to the residents of Norway, but the movie deals with the whole merger issue in a shallow, cartoonish fashion. Instead of engaging with the economic and social realities of small town schools and contracting budgets, it turns a Norway school administrator into a Snidely Whiplash-type villain who does bad things because he's a bad person.
I wish the makers of The Final Season had had the courage Sylvester Stallone had when he made the original Rocky. Despite what you may misremember, Rocky wasn't about an underdog overcoming the odds. It was about the degeneration of the American Dream. Rocky was a guy with talent but he never got the opportunity America is supposed to be all about until it was too late for him to do anything with it. Rocky realizes he can't win the fight and make millions of dollars and live happily ever after. All he wants is to be able to look in the mirror and know he's more than just another "bum from the neighborhood". The original Rocky isn't about being a winner. It's about what it means to not be a loser. That's the sort of bold, creative impulse I wish the makers of The Final Season had reached out for.
But they didn't. What they did is give us a pleasant, family-friendly film about good people trying to do something great. It's a lovable, enjoyable movie if you don't look hard at it.