By the time Sunday night had rolled around, I had been going to mostly press screenings at Tribeca. I really wanted to go to a premiere, mostly so I could hear the director and other movie participants stand up and answer questions about their film. I managed to get that chance when I weaseled my way into the premiere screening of the family film Chasing 3000, and I was rewarded for my patience.
I've never been much for family films, but as a baseball fan, this story intrigued me. Not many people outside of baseball fandom know much about Roberto Clemente, even though he was arguably among the best to ever play the game. He was a true five-tool player who not only became a legend around Pittsburgh (he played for the Pirates), but also become known as a humanitarian; a few months after getting his 3000th hit on the last day of the 1972 season, he died in a plane crash while transporting relief supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua. This film, directed by Greg Lanesey from an original story by Bill Mikita, pays loving tribute to Clemente via passages from his autobiography and archival footage from late in his career.
But this is mostly a story of two brothers and a road trip neither would forget. Mickey (Trevor Morgan) and Roger (Rory Culkin) are children of Pittsburgh and Clemente admirers. But halfway through the 1972 season, their mother (Lauren Holly - has she gotten to the "mom roles" stage of her career already?) moves them out to Los Angeles so Roger, who has respiratory problems brought on by muscular dystrophy, won't get sick as much. Mickey especially feels out of sorts; he's slumping on his high school baseball team and feels that he's disappearing within his own family. So, while the mother is away on a business trip he decides to drive back to Pittsburgh during the last week of the baseball season, hoping to witness Clemente's 3000th hit in person. Despite a worsening cough, Roger decides to join them.
Of course, as in most road movies, the trip doesn't go smoothly. And that's where most movies like this are made or broken: are the adventures the two people go through plausible and entertaining, and how does the relationship between the "buddies" on the trip help carry them through? This movie succeeds on both points. Yes, there are a few points along the journey that would make an adult roll their eyes -- namely the motorcycle gang with a heart of gold -- but the kids that were in the audience seemed engaged with the story, which is the movie's aim. But there is an easygoing chemistry between Morgan and Culkin that makes you really believe that they're brothers. Culkin should be especially commended for playing a physically difficult role; he effectively conveys both the emotional difficulty and stoic determination a kid who's in his condition -- Roger learns that most people with his form of MD don't graduate high school -- usually displays, just trying to live his life as normally as possible.
The movie has plenty of good performances, especially M. Emmet Walsh as nutty farmer, Tania Raymonde as a Reds-hat-wearing runaway, and Seymour Cassel as the brothers' Old World grandfather back in Pittsburgh.
Ray Liotta plays a grown-up version of Mickey in present-day segments that wrap around the story, and in the Q&A after the screening, both Lanesey and Mikita acknowledged that Liotta's interest in the project helped get the movie a bigger budget. "The money without Liotta was a lot different than the money with Liotta," said Lanesey. It allowed them to afford the license fees Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association charged for the archival footage and imagery of Clemente. There were also over 200 special effects, so the period aspect of the movie could be preserved; they're fairly successful, as I only spotted one or two minor anachronistic details. According to Lanesey, both MLB and the Clemente family were very happy with the resulting product.
Mikita wrote the story back in 1999, based on the love he and his brother Steve, who has the same rare form of MD, had for Clemente and the Pirates. They took a similar trip from their home in Steubenville, Ohio to Pittsburgh to see Clemente play, and during the rewrite stage, the story became a cross-country trip. According to Mikita, his brother is a medical miracle, the only person with his form of MD to survive into his fifties. Jay Karnes of The Shield plays the adult version of Roger in the movie, and he called up Steve and talked to him to get an idea of how he lives now. It comes through in his brief performance; he may only be able to move a finger, but he's just happy to still be alive and see the Pirates at their new home in PNC Park (I've been there; it's my favorite ballpark in the country and deserved the lush cinematic treatment Lanesey gave it).
Chasing 3000 is one of the rare family movies that effectively engages both adults and kids. One warning for parents: there's more swearing than I expected in a movie like this. While the script takes pains to insert curse substitutes like "jagoff," the s-word seems to be liberally sprinkled through the movie. It's nothing that a ten year old (the recommended minimum age the festival has for this movie) hasn't heard before, and it gives the movie a more realistic feel. But any parent thinking there will be nothing more severe than a random "damn" or "hell" in this flick will be in for a surprise.
The entire premiere of Chasing 3000 was an enjoyable experience: a fine movie, a creative team passionate about the story, and fairly well-behaved kids. It was a good way to end a long day at Tribeca.
For more HuffPost coverage of the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival, go here.