Summer Catch: Throw It Back!

The approximate time elapsed in Summer Catch (opening, I'm pretty sure, Friday Aug. 24) before Freddie Prinze Jr. takes off his shirt to reveal his chiseled chest and washboard stomach.

Five minutes, 25 seconds.

The approximate time elapsed in Summer Catch before Prinze wearing only a woman's thong goes running across a baseball field with the sprinklers on.

Ten minutes, 20 seconds.

The approximate time elapsed in Summer Catch before Jessica Biel, the hottie preacher's daughter from the WB Network's Seventh Heaven, emerges from a swimming pool wearing one of the greatest bikinis I've ever seen.

Ten minutes, 30 seconds.

The approximate time elapsed until I began wishing the movie was about Biel trying on various swimsuits at the local shopping mall.

I shouldn't have worn a watch to this one, folks. Summer Catch is one of the true abysmal failures of 2001. It makes Major League III look like Pride of the Yankees. A complete failure as a baseball movie and an absolute dud as a romantic comedy, this new movie is essentially about a group of people in various states of undress playing ball, getting into fights, making up, making out, and revealing themselves to be the intellectual insects they probably are in real life.

Prinze "stars" as Ryan Dunne, a hotheaded young pitcher who could be a star in the Major Leagues if he could only harness his amazing skills on the mound. This walking clichi lives in Cape Cod, which is apparently the site of a Major League training ground for amateur ballplayers. He is poor and cuts grass to make end meets.

Now, dear readers. Turn to Screenwriting 101, page 17.

Biel co-stars as the unfortunately named Tenley Parrish (sounds like a subway stop in Boston), the daughter of a local rich man played by Bruce Davidson (his second disapproving father of the summer after Crazy/Beautiful). Tenley is also destined for greater things, namely a job in the family business out in San Francisco. Daddy can't have her falling in love with a blue-collar ballplayer from the wrong side of the tracks, so he goes about trying to sabotage the relationship with his power and wealth (I can barely type this crap, folks. I don't know how they got people to act it).

Dunne, meanwhile, has problems with his own dad (Fred Ward, who moves through the film like his 'roids are acting up). It seems Father Dunne once tried to be a ballplayer himself and failed. Now he is landscaper to the Cape's wealthy residents. Ward grumbles about his son thinking he is better than everyone else "'cause he can pitch." Then, about halfway through, he does an about-face to become completely supportive of Ryan.

Charlie Brown's parents had more emotional complexity than the Dads and Moms in this film.

The other major character is Dunne's "wild man" catcher, Billy Brubaker (the exceedingly annoying Matthew Lillard). As comic relief, the only laughs that Lillard brings to the film is the sight of him playing ball. The former Scream star has a body more like a foul pole than a catcher.

Quick time check: 45 minutes, 35 seconds.

The approximate time elapsed in Summer Catch before we see Lillard in a woman's thong, guzzling water after a night of heavy drinking. THIS IS THE MOST DISTURBING IMAGE I HAVE SEEN IN A MOVIE THIS YEAR!

Back to the review. Screenwriting 101 is the best way to describe this movie. Biel, in particular, has to say some of the most laughably bad lines of dialogue I've heard in quite some time. Things like: "Ryan, you can do it. You just have to allow yourself to do it." The fact that she doesn't continue to appear in that bikini during such scenes is unforgivable.

Prinze doesn't help matters any. In the past, I've given this guy a break, because he really does seem like a genuinely nice man in real life. Truthfully, I think most reviewers rag on him because he is just a damn, pretty man. But I'm not that petty. Sure, the young Prinze is at least 10 times more handsome than the elder Prinze Sr. ever was. Meanwhile, I'm only slightly better looking than the young Vic Tayback.

It's all good.

What disturbs me about Prinze is that his acting skills are almost completely devoid of nuance. At one point, Biel tells him he has pretty eyes (while somehow keeping a straight face). Prinze then looks into the camera and lets the cinematographer's light catch his chestnut browns just so. It's such a horribly cutesy moment, I could actually hear sphincters clenching throughout the theater.

Best joke I heard walking to my car afterwards:

Question: What is a Summer Catch?

Answer: A Freddie Prinze Jr. sexually transmitted disease.

Sorry, that was wrong.

Unfortunately, Summer Catch required an actor who could elevate the clichi-ridden script. The film is so shamelessly derivative of Bull Durham that it's painful. Beverly D'Angelo has a one-scene cameo as Susan Sarandon's character. Britney Murphy plays the town flooze, very similar to the one played by Lori Petty. "Bru" is basically "Crash," who was played by Tim Robbins. The list goes on. But Bull Durham was smart about baseball and smart about the various personalities who play the game. It showed us their idiosyncracies, their superstitions, their hard and soft edges. And the games were generally compelling.

By contrast, Summer Catch features a team of one-note characters who each have their one quirk, and that's it. The left fielder likes overweight girls, the second baseman is a virgin, the relief pitcher likes to sleep during games.

And the baseball is atrocious. Every pitch from Ryan is either a strikeout or a towering home run. Not even the town comes into any kind of sharp focus. This film can't carry "Durham's jock (and keep in mind I am only comparing it to Bull Durham because the film invites the comparison).

OK, throw out the Prinze/Biel/Lillard trio. I gotta know. How did they convince such fine actors as Davidson, Ward, D'Angelo, Brian Dennehy, and Jason Gedrick to appear in this dreck? You know how some movies, like the Toy Story films and the Rush Hour flicks, end with a blooper reel? Summer Catch should have had its final credits roll alongside all of the actors saddling up to the Warner Bros. pay window, picking up their checks for this movie, and then turning to the camera, pointing, and laughing.

This movie was a chore to sit through, right on up until its laughably implausible, way-too-tidy, and fiendishly abrupt happy ending. I sat there not happy, but depressed, wanting to weep at the two hours I just lost from my life. But then I remembered one of the Film Critic's Golden Rules:

There's no crying in baseball movies.

Summer Catch is rated PG-13 for sexual content, language, and the frequent consumption of alcoholic beverages. Unfortunately, none by me while watching it.