DVD Review: Fever Pitch

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People may have differing opinions on whether Fever Pitch (Widescreen Edition) is a good movie, but they cannot argue the fact that the producers had to be the luckiest people of all time. What were the chances that they were going to decide to do a movie on a crazed Red Sox fan only to have the “cursed” team win the World Series during the year that the movie was being produced? If anything else, they should have gone out and played the lottery when they were finished with production.

Fever Pitch does a great job putting together the aspects of movies that both females and males can enjoy. While it revolves around a baseball crazed fan, a good case could be made that it can be considered a chick flick. Even though the Red Sox are obviously the center piece of the movie, the love connection between main characters Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon is what really drives the flick.

Fallon’s character, Ben, is a school teacher who winds up in Barrymore’s character, Lindsey’s, office while he is taking his students on a field trip. Ben’s students claim that Lindsey is way out of his league and he sets out to prove them wrong. Although Lindsey first turns down Ben’s request for a date, she eventually accepts with the goading of her friends.

Their relationship works out perfectly throughout the winter months and when baseball season rolls around both characters promise that the Sox are not going to get between them. The main conflict comes the Ben’s dedication to the Sox becomes more than his dedication to Lindsey and she can’t take it any longer.

After Lindsey breaks up with him, Ben tries to reason with himself by claiming that the Red Sox are always there for him and that he can always count on them. In the end though, Ben realizes that what is really important to him is to have Lindsey in his life so he decides to sell his season tickets to a newly acquired friend for $125,000.

When Lindsey hears of the sale, she leaves her promotion party and goes straight to Fenway Park where she purchases a ticket for $300 with the game nearly over. Once inside the stadium, she jumps onto the field and runs across the outfield grass to stop the sale. At that moment, both characters realize that they can put up with the other one’s obsession in exchange for a relationship. Then, to top it all off, the Sox end up winning the World Series.

The movie is entertaining throughout and provides viewers with various types of humor during the whole film. Fallon and Barrymore have great on camera chemistry and their characters seem believable in every scene. This film is a great date night movie even if one of the people in the relationship isn’t particularly fond of baseball. The movie may, in fact, make them more acceptable of the game when they see the kind of power that it has over people.

The DVD provides fans with 13 deleted scenes, all of which could have easily been used in the movie, but were probably deemed unneeded due to the film’s length. There is also a gag reel included in the special features which includes some hilarious edited material. The viewer should make sure that they watch these bonus features after they have already viewed the film so that they understand the context of the scenes.

The Grade: 4.25/5

Bill Jordan is a contributor to BaseballReflections.com. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].