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Verdict: And it's one, two, three strikes...

Details: Starring Kevin Costner and Kelly Preston. Directed by Sam Raimi. Rated PG-13 for sexual situations, profanity and drinking. 2 hours, 18 minutes.

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Review: Baseball has been very, very good to Kevin Costner. "Bull Durham" was funny, sexy, literate stuff. "Field of Dreams" still makes grown men weep.

Too bad that, no matter how hard it tries to hit, Costner's new baseball romance, "For Love of the Game," whiffs a lot. At two hours-plus, it doesn't just seem long, it sometimes feels like a double rain delay.

"Game" is one of Costner's better efforts in recent years. Its dramatic end-of-season matchup of the Detroit Tigers taking on the New York Yankees packs more punch than "The Postman"; its off-field love story musters more sexual heat than "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves."

This is one date movie that plenty of audiences will cheer. Good for them.

Costner plays Billy Chapel, a Tigers pitching god in his waning years whose star power might have been bigger than the game itself. In the span of seconds, he learns first that his team is being sold and he'll be traded, and then that his girlfriend, Jane (Kelly Preston), is dumping him.

Chapel heads for the mound to pitch what could be his last game. And a doozy it is. As he nears what could be a perfect game, he begins to think back over his life — playing catch as a kid and meeting Jane, wooing her, losing her (more than once) and trying to win her back.

Whether Costner tosses a perfect game isn't nearly as important as whether director Sam Raimi (the "Evil Dead" flicks and "A Simple Plan") can pull off a tricky double play — half a movie devoted to staging an authentic-looking baseball game, and half dedicated to flashbacks of a believable, up-and-down he/she relationship.

Raimi, a baseball buff, seems resolved to play it out in a rhapsody of the most reliable sports cliches. Real-life announcers Vin Scully and Steve Lyons show up to call the game in their hokey, bantering style. Costner's pitches are punctuated with ear-splitting sound swooshes. And for the make-or-break plays, slo-mo that only Brian De Palma fans could love.

Costner and Preston's romance is often played just as large, with frequent musical interludes and "would you love me if...?" moments.

The actors generate just enough sexual chemistry to make a convincing couple. But the real life in this movie comes from John C. Reilly (Mark Wahlberg's porn film pal in "Boogie Nights"). He plays Gus Sinski, Chapel's career-long catcher. The rare times when he's on-screen, Reilly is funny, goofy and a welcome sight.

It's a small plus to counter "Game's" field of extremes.

— Bob Longino, Cox News Service

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