Mustache Marathon 2: Mr. Baseball (1992)

Last year, when I did the Mustache Marathon, I picked one of the movies based on Tom Selleck’s mustache.  That movie was Three Men and a Baby.  I completely regretted that decision.  Out of all of the marathons I have had so far, that is quite possibly my least favourite movie.  Aside from, obviously, Cruel World.  Of course that made me a tad bit scared when I was picking my movies for this year’s iteration of the marathon.  Now I’ve seen another Tom Selleck movie.  Did I like it or not?  Let’s see.

This year, I picked Mr. Baseball for my Tom Selleck movie.  Mr. Baseball is about a cocky American baseball player who is beyond his prime being sent to Japan to play baseball.  He learns from the Japanese and the Japanese learn from him.  It’s not easy though.  It takes time for them to come to an understanding.

I went into this movie with low expectations.  The last Tom Selleck movie that I watched was Three Men and a Baby, so my expectations were sure to be low.  I was pleasantly surprised this time around.

Tom Selleck gives a solid performance as the title Mr. Baseball.  He brings the cocky, stubborn attitude that the role calls for, while also bringing some underlying sympathetic qualities that are needed to help the viewer connect with the character.  To use a term I’ve heard before, but am unsure of where, he is a likeable asshole.  If you want to get people to feel bad for a character, but the character is abrasive, the qualities that Tom Selleck brought to the movie are what you need.

This point doesn’t have anything to do with quality, but Dennis Haysbert was in this movie.  This movie could be considered a baseball comedy.  So could Major League, which is perhaps the number one baseball comedy ever.  Dennis Haysbert was also in Major League.  This isn’t really even an interesting point.  It’s just something I thought while I was watching the movie.

The music in the movie wasn’t bad either.  It was pleasing to my ears.  I’m not going to go into detail about it.  All I want to say is that it’s not bad music by any means.  It was aurally pleasurable.   It didn’t take you out of the movie.  It didn’t bring you into the movie.  It was there, and I liked hearing it during the movie.

If I had to take something away from this film that I can actually describe with my limited descriptive intelligence, it would be that there were a lot of Japanese stereotypes in this movie.  Some of them might well represent the Japanese culture.  I’m sure that not all of the stereotypes were only stereotypes.  A number of them could actually be true representations of the Japanese.  I’m sure some of them were exaggerations though.  That’s inconsiderate of the people of Japan.  But, this is a comedy, so anything is open to getting joked about.

Oh, and the mustache.  I can’t forget the mustache.  Tom Selleck’s mustache!  What is there to say about it?  It’s the perfect mustache.

What I can say for sure is that I enjoyed the movie.  It’s not something I’m overly excited to get around to seeing again.  It’s fun for a watch but I’m not rushing out of my way to rewatch it.  It’s enjoyable.  That’s the perfect way to put it.  You wouldn’t go wrong by watching the movie.

Next up is a classic Burt Reynolds movie, or so I’ve heard, called Hooper.  Burt Reynolds is a stuntman!  So that’s the next movie, making two movies in a row starring people who were stars of movies in the Mustache Marathon last year.  I’m on a roll.  And that’s all I have to say about that.