Cool Runnings/Angels in the Outfield

“Cool Runnings,” released in 1993, is able to challenge everything standard about sports movies and manages to become a crowd-pleasing comedy. Directed by Jon Turteltaub and the script written by Lyn Siefert and Tommy Swerdlow & Michael Goldberg, the film interestingly does not have Jamaicans as their main leads. Three are from USA and Lewis says he was born in Trinidad.

“Cool Runnings” is inspired by the true story of the Jamaican bobsled team enlisting during the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary. Derice Bannock, played by Leon, is one of the best Jamaican sprinters and when his Olympic dreams end for making the track team, he does everything to make his dreams come true not caring what sport it is. Finding out that former United States gold medal bobsledding winner Irv Blitzer (the late John Candy) is living in Jamaica, he finds him with his friend, Sanka Cofie (Doug E. Doug, who you might remember as Griffin Vesey on the CBS sitcom “Cosby,” which ironically also had Bill Cosby and Phylicia Rashad playing a married couple). Irv is hesitant to say yes but Derice does not want to take no for an answer.

After having a meeting, it is coincidence that the two other sprinters in the fall, Junior Bevil (Rawle D. Lewis) and Yul Brenner (Malik Yoba), are the only other people interested in joining the newly made bobsled team. Becaue Junior prevented both Derice and Yul from enlisting in the summer games, there’s some bitterness. It takes some time but the team if finally able to get along.

Danielle Solzman said in her review, “I like what John Candy brings to the role as the coach.  The Second City alumnus brings a nice mixture of both comedy and drama in what would sadly turn out to be among his final roles before his untimely passing in 1994 (the last released while he was living).” Talking about the fictional International Alliance of Winter Sports after the team was disqualified due to rule changes; Blitzer gives a loving speech that Candy gives his everything when saying it.

Next up we have the 1994 classic baseball movie, “Angels in the Outfield.” The story is that children, because they are children, tell the truth. Other than the adults, kids speak very pure at heart. When they tell you they see angels, you have got to believe them.

Roger, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, is a charge of the state. His father, played by Dermot Mulroney, wearing a leather jacket and looking filthy, tells his son at the beginning of the film that “we’ll be a family again when the Angels win the pennant” and drives off on his motorcycle. Peter Rainer said in his review, “It's a kiss-off--the California Angels are in dead-last place.”

That’s when Roger is visited by Al the Angel, played by Christopher Lloyd, in the ballpark during a usual disappointing Angels game and, before long, the team is getting first place under the supervision of a crowd of smiling, winged angels. However, Roger is the only one who sees them.

J.P., Roger’s best friend, played by Milton Davis Jr., who was also in the Pepsi commercial with former basketball player Shaquille O’Neal, can’t see them. However, J.P., who is sadly also an orphan, believes his friend. The film is about how the Angels livid, obscenity-shouting manager, George Knox, played by Danny Glover, also comes to believe. He’s cleansed by getting close to the boys.

The drain in this movie comes in almost as high as the Angels. Rainer said, “It's a special kind of kiddie sentimentality: fantastical and self-congratulatory.” Children are allowed the skill to see the delightful in the everyday and then work their charm on the unbelieving adults in their reality. They do it all due to the cliché of love. Besides, Roger’s special look comes from his prayers for a family.

Rainer noted, “Baseball movies have been getting preachier and more peewee-like in recent years: consider "The Sandlot," "Rookie of the Year," and, just a few weeks ago, "Little Big League." "Angels in the Outfield," loosely remade from a 1951 MGM film where the angels were all off-screen, is the drippiest (and the goofiest) of the bunch. It's a Disney-fied morality play complete with corn and sniffles. Roger may be able to see angels, but he's not particularly wowed by his gift. He's too blandly virtuous to get really excited about anything.”

The real kids in this film are the adults – the players, managers and sportscasters. They’re the ones who show some anger, some spirit. Just almost all the funny scenes in the movie are with their incidents occasionally on the field: The catcher, played by Tony Longo, eats the junk food and, as Rainer described, “looks and sounds like Curly from the Three Stooges.” One of the pitchers, played by Neal McDonough, is filled with spasms and tricks. The team’s PR director, played by Taylor Negron, is continually spilling mustard and covered with nacho cheese by the two children in his way. (Rainer said, “Of course, the goody-goodies Roger and J.P. don't do it on purpose.”) Ranch Wilder, played by Jay O. Sanders, who was once George’s enemy on the baseball field, is, and Rainer described, “The big-jawed cartoon meanie who announces the Angels radio broadcasts.” He breaks the likely embarrassing story that George’s winning streak is angel-inspired. (Rainer said, “The press conference scene in which George and his teammates stand up for the right to believe in miracles isn't exactly up there with the Scopes trial from "Inherit the Wind," although it's played just about as straight.”)

Director William Dear and screenwrtiers Dorothy Kingsley, George Wells and Holly Goldberg Sloan gather most of their efforts for the funny, insane trips on the baseball field. As the kids’ guardian, Brenda Fricker, doing her best to censor her Irish accent, is fine in a serious way, and so is the great Tony Danza (former boxer who also starred in great sitcoms like “Taxi” and “Who’s the Boss?” and also having his own sitcom and talk show titled “The Tony Danza Show”) as an ancient pitcher. However, for the most part, “Angels in the Outfield” is watchable when it’s at its craziest.

Rainer said, “The quick, zoomy shots of the slapstick angels dipping their big bright golden wings are funny in an original way.” These parts are maybe what the adults in the audience will remember from the film. That’s maybe what kids will remember it as well, including with the squirted mustard and the baseline anger. Rainer noted, “They'll blot out the soppy moralizing.” Besides, kids know they don’t always tell the truth, even if Hollywood doesn’t.

Now that we talked about these two classics, look out tomorrow for more excitement in “Disney Live-Action Month.”