A League of Their Own

Directed by Penny Marshall, A League of Their Own follows several women, including Geena Davis’ Dottie, Lori Petty’s Kit, and Madonna’s Mae, as they’re recruited to play professional baseball during the Second World War – with the team reluctantly coached by an alcoholic former ballplayer named Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks). It’s a comfortable, promising setup that’s employed to pervasively watchable effect by Marshall, as the filmmaker, armed with Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel’s screenplay, delivers a consistently entertaining endeavor that benefits from the top-to-bottom stellar efforts of its various performers – with the eclectic cast’s affable work going a long way towards smoothing over the narrative’s periodic lulls and padded-out interludes. (Davis and her costars are all quite good here, undoubtedly, and yet it remains clear that Hanks’ frequently spellbinding turn stands as the picture’s most appealing, engaging attribute.) The agreeable atmosphere paves the way for a midsection and second half that’s generally far more compelling than one might’ve anticipated, and it goes without saying, as well, that the emotional punch of the movie’s closing stretch ensures that it ends on an impressively memorable and resonant note – which ultimately cements A League of Their Own‘s place as a successful, satisfying blockbuster that’s admittedly just a little bit longer than is ideal.

*** out of ****