Fort Worth Star-Telegram from Fort Worth, Texas • 85

I movies MOVIE REVIEWS Boys will be baseball players The Sandlot Rating: 7 on a scale of 1 to 10 Director David Mickey Evans Featuring: Tom Guiry Mike titer Denis Leary Karen Allen James Earl Jones Rated: PG (scattered rude language but mostly kid stuff) By LEE KRAVETZ SPECIAL TO THE STAR-TELEGRAM The great American pastime is no longer just a game for nine boys during a hot summer in the '50s As the baseball season begins audiences will be suprised to find a laughable pre-season opener being played not in some ballpark but in a movie theater instead The Sandlot is the movie and it centers on Scotty Smalls (Tom Guiry) a scrawny introverted "new kid on the block" who cannot play baseball Surrounded by neighborhood kids whose lives are tied to the sport Smalls finds himself playing the outcast in right field Befriended by the team's most influentual player Benjamin Franklin Rodriguez played by newcomer Mike Vitar Smalls is taught how to catch Smalls finds himself accepted by a clan of nerds who are popular only in their own world of bail Their only worry is a fetocous dog known as "the Beast" that resides on the other side of the back fence the final resting place of all the pop-flies and out-of-thepark home-run balls Comedian Denis Leary (of MTV fame) abandons his "angry white comic" role for an atypical turn as Smalls' distant stepfather who often seems consumed in something other than family life Smalls steals his dad's cherished baseball which bears the signature of Babe Ruth In a moment of inspired strength the kid smacks the cherished ball into the air sending it of course into the territory of "the Beast" Now the problem of retrieving the ball heavily on the simple minds of the sandlot team and they'll try almost any means necessary to regain possession of the revered artifact The Sandlot has less to do with baseball and more to do with the principles of male bonding It mu-rots the the same effect Stand By Me had seven years ago only this time the depiction of friendship among a group of pre-pubescent rejects is shown as lighthearted and amusing stretching reality just a bit in order to grasp the attention of a younger crowd Most of the cast are newcomers but familiar faces such as Karen Allen as Smalls' affectionate mother and James Earl Jones as the owner of "the Beast" make brief appearances John Gage (Robert Redford) is accompanied by Diana Murphy (Demi Moore) while gambling at a Las Vegas casino in a scene irom Indecent Proposal A bittersweet love stoly amid the rubble By MICHAEL PRICE FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM Indecent Proposal Rating: 5 on a scale of 1 to 10 Director: Adrian Lyne Featuring: Robert Redford Woody Harrelson Demi Moore Rated: (mature subject matter flashes of nudity language) Stylish as high fashion and every bit as impermanent Adrian Lyne's Indecent Proposal is a serious disappointment buoyed by some fine desperate-soul portrayals The film aims to be a Honeymoon in Vegas with a sharper edge but sharpness is relative Honeymoon that shallow 1992 comedy about tangled romantic loyalties suggests a bonehead version of the brainy Jack Englehard novel Indecent Proposal And in adapting Indecent Proposal for this new movie screenwriter Amy Holden Jones and director Lyne have lobotomized the novel Robert Redford is too good an actor for the resulting mess but he gives it a game go anyhow He is the moneybags who offers a financially strapped couple (played by Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson) $1 million in exchange fora night alone with the woman And heaven only knows they need the loot Demi Moore and Robert Redford come near redeeming the film which also boasts Lyne's dependably brisk pace and arresting visual sense even though they are struggling against formidable odds The decision to remove the novel's controversial fr 'logo 0 A 0 '21r -10-- 4 0''' 1" lo A Lir 1 ft) If 4 1 i ---0 i I i 01 --4 ethnicity is a major failing: The troubled couple of Englehard's original tale is Israeli and the "benefactor" who intends to reduce a proud woman to merchandise is an Arab Things play well enough within the film's whitebread safety zone but the actors must work unnaturally hard to make up for the lost culture-clash resonance And although Moore and Redford make more of the assignment than is written third-billed Woody Harrelson is out of his depth Where the role calls for rage Harrelson does temper tantrums Redford has him outclassed by several leagues But the bringdowns can't touch Redford and Moore who rise above the glossy sleaze and demeaning message to unearth a bittersweet love story The resolution is not entirely satisfying but It seems honest enough under the circumstances From left Grant Gell Chauncey Leopardi and Victor DiMattia in The Sandlot cr 77: ca 1 as 70 I his hands on that smart-alecky Chuck Norris) and from Dennis durkley the classically trained Fort Worth actor who demeans himself once again with a stereotypical cycle-gang hoodlum role Sidekicks Rating: 6 on a scale of 1 to 10 Director: Aaron Norris Featuring: Jonathan Brandis Beau Bridges Mako Chuck Norris Dennis Burkley Julia Nickson-Soul Joe Piscopo Rated: PG (scattered rude language martial-arts action schoolyard bully-type violence) Plenty of kicks to go along with the kitsch dis) Ultimately Norris must appear in the flesh and he does so in a way that is so surprising as to render the outlandishness of the situation beside the point Here is one of those movies that is so good-hearted it seems unkind to pick at its dramatic failings We find satisfyingly earnest enactments from Beau Bridges (as Brandis' worried and confused father) the wonderfully expressive Julia Nickson-Soul (as the schoolteacher who helps Brandis come to terms with his fantasies) the great Japanese player Mako (as the wise fellow who puts Brandis through martial-arts training) and The Wonder Years' Danica By MICHAEL PRICE FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM Couched playfully amid all the hambone hokum and Rocky- style heroic flourishes of Sidekicks there hides an undeniable sense of dignity and emotional uplift A modestly budgeted North Texas production with about equal measures of soulfulness and silliness Sidekicks is a Chuck Norris movie like no other in the athlete-turned-actor's 21 years of movie stardom Norris plays himself here first surfacing as an imaginary figure who keeps coming to the rescue in the daydreams of a teen-age schoolboy misfit Jopathan Bran sctloolboy misittliot Balancing and unifying these extremes is Norris himself who seems glad to be on hand and exhibits a terrific sense of self-parodying humor Most entertaining parts are the various make-believe scenarios parodying jungle-combat thrillers westerns Asian-peril movies and so forth Director Aaron Norris (Chuck's brother) keeps things moving qlong agreeably enough McKellar (as a might-be girlfriend for Brandis) On the other hand we must contend with utter cartoonish nonsense from Joe Piscopo (as the martial-arts bully who'd like to get 11: Z44.