Eight Men Out **** (1988, John Cusack, Clifton James, Michael Lerner, Christopher Lloyd, John Mahoney, Charlie Sheen, David Strathairn, D B Sweeney, Kevin Tighe) – Classic Movie Review 7020

Writer-director John Sayles’s fine 1988 film about the 1919 baseball scandal when eight underpaid members of the Chicago White Sox took money to throw the World Series.

Eight Men Out is a satisfying experience, thanks to the performances of the whole ensemble, the baseball action and Sayles’s command over a complex story with a lot of characters. Pace, period detail and baseball background all reach the spot exactly.

It stars John Cusack, Clifton James, Michael Lerner, Christopher Lloyd, John Mahoney, Charlie Sheen, David Strathairn, D B Sweeney, Kevin Tighe, Michael Rooker, Don Harvey and Bill Irwin – a truly special ensemble.

The writer-director as usual gives himself a role – as commentator Ring Lardner. Sayles bases his screenplay on the book by Eliot Asinof.

It is a realistic depiction of a masculine world, with one four-letter word.

Eight Men Out is directed by John Sayles, runs 119 minutes, is an Orion production, is released by  Rank (UK), is written by John Sayles, based on the book by Eliot Asinof, is shot by Robert Richardson and Nora Chavooshian, is produced by Sarah Pilsbury and Midge Sandford, and is scored by Mason Daring.

RIP John Mahoney, who plays William ‘Kid’ Gleason.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7020

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