You could also refer to this as the final chapter in the Costner Baseball Trilogy, after the elegiac "Field of Dreams" and the spot on boisterousness of "Bull Durham". Both of these films are strong because of their core ideas and honesty about the game, both positive and negative. "For Love of the Game" suffers by comparison because it does the exact opposite, where the sport is essentially back story to the romance that is played out between Billy Chapel (Costner) a Detroit Tigers pitcher, and a sportswriter from New York (Kelly Preston) and where observations about the game are either stereotyped or cartoonish.

You could almost change the title to "For Love of the Costner" as we are treated to the simple but honest ball player trying to go out in style as he pitches the final game of his stellar career (in a bloated 137 minutes, no less). There is nothing worse when scriptwriting contains phrases that no one, absolutely no one, would ever say. A line of dialog such as "How do you like to be kissed?" would cause most women to run screaming from the table. It's the type of line that would never work in real life but supposedly comes over as sensitive and romantic in a film. It's the kind of line that begs the response "Don't you know how?"

Costner is appropriate for the role, he's the right age and shows the strain and weariness that comes from many years of trying to stay at top physical form. Critical to pulling off this story is the relationship between Costner and Preston, but it doesn't ring true. There's too much subtle posturing with conversations that only exist in soapy films, resulting in some unintentionally funny exchanges.

Suspension of disbelief is a part of enjoying a movie experience, but you also need some help. The real stunner about this film isn't how bad it is, but that it was directed by Sam Raimi who turned out the sharp edged "A Simple Plan" earlier this year. Raimi built his reputation on low budget films and the choice of a sudsy script and star vehicle doesn't play on the director's strengths.

Costner is a solid actor and effective director ("Dances with Wolves") and he has certainly sampled various roles to move beyond the white hot stardom he experienced for several years. "A Perfect World" is a good example, an outlaw on the run who befriends a small boy, but it went largely unnoticed by the public. The media attention on "Water World" and "The Postman" focused on budgets, but there's plenty of blame to go around, and while not classics, they aren't completely without merit. Costner's strengths as an actor is his reserve and laconic delivery which works in films that play up conflict, but melodramatic roles such as this only accentuate the vacuous quality of the story. This film strains for romanticism but ends up in sentimental hell.

Perhaps Costner should take a role in an independent film that will rejuvenate his career. It certainly won't happen by participating in this kind of mawkish enterprise.