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THE HILL

Producers: Jeff Celentano and Warren Ostergard   Director: Jeff Celentano   Screenplay: Angelo Pizzo and Scott Marshall Smith   Cast: Dennis Quaid, Colin Ford, Jesse Berry, Joelle Carter, Bonnie Bedelia, Randy Houser, Scott Glenn, Siena Bjornerud, Mila Harris, Ryan Dinning, Mason Gillett, Carina Worm, Hailey Bithell, Pilot Bunch, Mustapha J. Slack, Tyrik Johnson, James Devoti and David Silverman   Distributor: Briarcliff Entertainment

Grade: C

If you’re in the mood for an inspirational true-life sports story in the vein of “Hoosiers” and “Rudy,” you might check out this one from Angelo Pizzo, who wrote the screenplays for both of those classics of the genre.  In terms of the games involved, Pizzo aims for a trifecta with “The Hill,” moving on from basketball and football to baseball.  He also changes location, going from Indiana to Texas, though the movie was shot, as so many are nowadays, in Georgia.  But the intention remains the same: to lift the spirits with a tale of unlikely underdog triumph, in this case that of a baseball-loving boy crippled by a degenerative spinal disorder who through sheer grit overcomes his condition to earn a place in the Minor Leagues through his prowess as a power hitter.

In the process he earns the respect and support of his father, a Baptist preacher who has always opposed his desire to play baseball, not only because of his fear that the boy’s constitution can’t take the physical strain but because he looks upon the game as a secular threat to his hope that his son will follow in his footsteps in the ministry.

The screenplay divides the story into two parts, roughly a decade apart.  For the first hour Jesse Berry plays eight-year old Rickey Hill, living with his older brother Robert (Mason Gillett) and sister Connie (Hailey Bithell) with their parents James (Dennis Quaid) and Hellen (Joelle Carter), as well as Hellen’s widowed mother Lilian (Bonnie Bedelia).  They’re desperately poor, with James struggling to lead a tiny, often obstreperous congregation in a small North Texas town.  Rickey, his legs encased in metal braces, dreams of playing baseball, and with encouragement from his siblings practices practicing hitting rocks with a stick so far that the distance impresses neighbor Ray Clemens (Randy Houser), a mechanic, even after one of the stones damages his windshield.  Rickey’s also the object of puppy-dog infatuation from sweet little Gracie Shantz (Mila Harris), a baseball player herself. 

But misfortune strikes the family when James is tossed from his job by disgruntled parishioners led by Gracie’s abusive, alcoholic father (James Devoti), and when their run-down car breaks down in the middle of the road, they’re miraculously rescued by an elderly couple who tell James of an opening for a pastor in the run-down church in nearby Bowie.  He takes the job, and the kids soon learn of a youth baseball team whose coach (David Silverman) urges James to allow Rickey to play after he sees him hit against their arrogant star pitcher (Pilot Bunch).  He refuses, but Robert risks his father’s wrath to forge his name on a permission slip.  Miraculously, Rickey is able to shed his braces and play.

Ten years or so later, as the film’s second hour opens, Rickey (now played by Colin Ford) is the star of the high school team in Bowie, whose home run against his old pitching nemesis wins the big game and encourages Ray to use his connections to get a scout come and see him play.  Gracie (now played by Siena Bjornerud) returns with a Houston sportswriter in tow to write about him.  The future seems bright.

But disaster strikes and Rickey fractures his ankle, tripping over a sprinkler in the outfield; the prognosis is not good—and just as a major competition for a potential MLB spot is imminent.  Can the money be raised for surgery, and even if it can, can Rickey recover fast enough to have a chance in the competition, presided over by crusty veteran Red Murff (Scott Glenn), who’s disinclined to give anybody special treatment?  And will Pastor James finally overcome his dismissal of his son’s dreams—he’s never even gone to see Rickey play—and show as much support as the rest of the family (Ryan Dinning now plays Robert, and Carina Worm Connie), Ray, and even one of his childhood friends, Jason (Tyrik Johnson, now the strapping Mustapha J. Slack), who’s also in the competition?

The fact that the movie is based on Hill’s actual experience mitigates the strain it puts on credulity to some extent, but it’s still so formulaic that you might be inclined to call it “Field of Clichés.”  The hardscrabble family existence it depicts—with production design by Geoffrey Kirkland and costumes by Lahly Poore—might summon “The Waltons” to mind.  And this is very much a faith-based movie: there’s a lot of prayer in it, on the part of father, son, and everyone in between.

And yet it will probably meet the expectations of viewers who like this sort of cannily manufactured uplift.  It boasts handsome widescreen cinematography by Kristopher Kimlin, and though the pacing by director Jeff Celentano and editor Douglas Crise is often sluggish and the score by Geoff Zanelli syrupy, that’s pretty much par for the course.  Quaid is, as usual, rather overwrought, and both Bedelia and Glenn play the cranky oldster card very heavily, but both Berry and Ford are likable as the younger and older versions of Rickey, Harris and Bjornerud are equally so as the two Gracies. The rest of the cast—including singer-songwriter Houser—are adequate.

Rickey frequently wallops the ball over the fence in his climb to glory in “The Hill.”  Unfortunately, the movie itself doesn’t match his accomplishment—it’s not a foul ball, but at best manages a single.             

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GOLDA

Producers: Michael Kuhn, Nicholas Martin and Jane Hooks  Director: Guy Nattiv   Screenplay: Nicholas Martin   Cast: Helen Mirren, Camille Cottin, Lior Ashkenazi, Rami Heuberger, Rotem Keinan, Dvir Benedek, Elie Piercy, Henry Goodman, Ed Stoppard, Dominic Mafham, Ohad Knoller and Liev Schreiber Distributor: Bleecker Street

Grade: C+

The difference is almost surreal: Nicholas Martin wrote the screenplay for 2016’s “Florence Foster Jenkins,” starring Meryl Streep as the determined if talent-free diva.  He returns after seven years with a tale about another remarkable woman, the first—and until now only—female prime minister of Israel, starring another of the screen’s most formidable actresses, Helen Mirren.  But “Golda” couldn’t be more different from the earlier picture, as dark, drab and dour as “Jenkins” was charming, colorful and funny.

The film, directed by Guy Nattiv (2019’s “Skin”), doesn’t attempt to cover, even cursorily, Golda Meir’s long political career.  Instead it focuses on just a few weeks in her five-year tenure as Prime Minister—the period of the Yom Kippur War (October 5-25, 1973).  It’s presented as a flashback from the work of a post-war investigative committee headed by Chief Justice Shimon Agranat (Henry Goodman) looking into the events. 

It begins with Meir’s testimony about warnings from Mossad Head Zvi Zamir (Rotem Keinan) of an impending coordinated attack from the north by Syria and south by Egypt, disbelief on the part of her cabinet—most notably Defense Minister Moshe Dayan (Rami Heuberger)—and Meir’s decision to order a partial mobilization that proves insufficient when the surprise assault occurs, resulting in a near-defeat for Israel.  But recovery and counter-offensive come as a result of the level-headed action of Meir and Chief of Staff David “Dado” Elazar (Lior Ashkenazi) and the daredevil inclinations of Ariel Sharon (Ohad Knoller) on the ground.

Combining recreations of cabinet sessions with some archival footage (the film was shot in the UK and Israel in dank, gray tones by cinematographer Jasper Wolf, who employs Arad Sawat’s grim production design to create a grainy, claustrophobic effect, and edited at a somber pace by Arik Lahav Leibovich), “Golda” does a reasonably good job of laying out the events of the war from the perspective of the Israeli government—including not merely the back-and-forth of the military operations but the difficult diplomatic dance Meir had to conduct with Washington, particularly through Henry Kissinger (Liev Schreiber), to maintain American support while acceding to demands not to push things so far as to invite direct conflict with the Soviets, or poison U.S. interests in maintaining relations with the Arab world for the sake of oil.  It also takes time to portray the close bond between Meir and her personal aide Lou Kaddar (Camille Cottin), who among other things is instrumental in arranging Meir’s radiation treatments for the cancer she has long kept secret from society at large and her governmental associates in particular.

The sources on which Martin based his script are not explicitly cited, but the portrait of Meir that it draws is overwhelmingly positive: she’s depicted as a woman of steely will, going to great lengths to hide her frailty, who won’t be railroaded by anyone (even Kissinger, whom she eventually confronts to extract important concessions from Egypt’s Anwar Sadat despite the dangers to Israeli-American relations), though one who readily solicits advice.  She’s also shown as a leader personally stricken by the human losses she sees herself as having caused (a circumstance personalized in the suffering of one of her typists), carrying guilt for her mistakes. 

Given the passage of time, after contemporary criticism that led to her resignation in 1974 has dimmed, that view might no longer be as controversial as it once would have been in Israel; but Martin’s portrayal of Dayan and Elazar certainly will be.  Dayan is still thought of as a heroic victor of the Six Days’ War, but here he is shown suffering a virtual breakdown after Israel’s initial setbacks and pretty much incapacitated.  Yet Elazar, who was the only major figure dismissed as a result of the Agranat Commission’s findings (causing great protest at the time), is rather rehabilitated here, portrayed as a dedicated, competent IDF leader who worked hand-in-hand with Meir to stabilize the combat situation and turn it around. Some may also dispute the characterization of Sharon, who’s portrayed as a showboating egotist, though one not without personal courage and battlefield acumen; at one point Meir has to placate him with the assurance that he’ll get his chance to shine, and probably become Prime Minister one day because of it.

The supporting cast—including Schreiber, who nails Kissinger’s dryly manipulative manner if not quite his accent—is fine, but the film is really a showcase for Mirren.  Transformed by Karen Hartley Thomas, credited with hair and make-up as well as prosthetics design, the actress becomes a virtual double of Meir.  But more telling than the uncanny physical similarity is Mirren’s ability to capture Meir’s personality.  She mimics the stooped-over, solemn walk (which costumer Sinéad Kidao’s draping dresses accentuate) and the chain-smoking (barely interrupted even when on a hospital table), but more importantly the manner, which can shift suddenly from composed and grandmotherly to stern and commanding.  She also brings off the occasional shift to humor, as when she cajoles the visiting Kissinger into eating a bowl of borscht by telling him that her cook is “a survivor.”  It may not be a great performance, but it is a great impersonation, and makes complaints about her having been cast in the first place seem pointless; after all, the film would probably not have even have been made without her.            

“Golda” isn’t a great movie, either; it’s more of a sober, often stilted TV-quality docudrama about the Yom Kippur War that’s even less successful in dramatizing the complexities of the overall Arab-Israeli conflict than in suggesting the cunning of Golda Meir’s character in dealing with the 1973 surprise attack.  But Mirren gives it her all, and it’s nice to see her apply her talent to something meatier than “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” or “Fast X.”