Angels in the Outfield *** (1994, Danny Glover, Christopher Lloyd, Joseph Gordon-Levitt) – Classic Movie Review 1464

Director William Dear’s 1994 movie Angels in the Outfield is an old-fashioned family comedy drama from Walt Disney, with grumpy old coach George Knox (Danny Glover) supposedly gaining angelic assistance from Al the Boss Angel (Christopher Lloyd) in successfully running his flop baseball team, the California Angels.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt also stars as Roger Bomman, who has lost his mother is living separated from his father, and prays to live with a real family and to have the Los Angeles baseball team win the championship. Only he can see the angels who turn up to help him, but luckily coach George can see his abilities.

This sweet and strange slice of religious fantasy is a remake of director Clarence Brown’s fondly regarded 1951 MGM movie Angels in the Outfield, with Paul Douglas, Janet Leigh and Keenan Wynn.

Sport and religion make strange bedfellows, but the very nice cast does extremely well. Packed full of well-meaning, sentimental down-home values, it is all pretty neat, good-natured, warm-hearted and entertaining. Disney have gone light on the religious aspects of the original film, keeping it more to a family fantasy comedy, with the main child character swapped from a girl to a boy, and now not an orphan living in an orphanage run by nuns, so the nun characters do not appear either.

Looking back on it, it’s worth just seeing for the appealing actors. You can’t argue with Brenda Fricker, Tony Danza, Ben Johnson, Jay O Sanders, Milton Davis Jr, Taylor Negron, Tony Longo, Neal McDonough, Stoney Jackson, Adrien Brody, Matthew McConaughey and Dermot Mulroney.

Busy child actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt made Holy Matrimony the same year.

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1464

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