Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19132 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-05-19
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Anamorphic, PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 99 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Summer Catch combines sports movie with teen romance across class boundaries and sticks in some less than effective bawdy comedy to make up the weight. Playing in a local summer baseball league is the last chance at a professional sports career Ryan (Freddie Prinz Jr) has after he gave up an earlier chance in order to attend his mother's funeral. The threats to his success include the rivalry of other young players, the temptation to just have fun offered by teammate Brubaker (Matthew Lillard) and his growing feelings for Tenley (Jessica Biel). Ryan also has his own demon--an obsession with failure.

Occasional outcroppings of psychobabble and melodrama stop this ever finding a satisfactory tone of its own--the scenes on the baseball diamond are often the most interesting. The scenes of sexual comedy largely waste such interesting young actors as Marc Blucas, Christian Kane and Brittany Murphy, all of whom do what they can with unprepossessing material. This is a film for Freddie Prinz Jr fans more than anyone else.

On the DVD: Summer Catch on DVD offers a collection of deleted scenes that indicate just how much more uncertain the film's tone was before editing; the commentary by actors Prinz and Biel and director Mike Tollin shows that they at least all had a fairly good time making it. The visual aspect ratio is widescreen anamorphic 1.85:1 and the DVD has Dolby 5:1 digital sound. --Roz Kaveney

Special Features
1.85 Anamorphic Wide Screen
English
Region 2
Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround English
Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
Audio Commentary With Freddie Prinze Junior And Jessica Biel And Mike Tollin
Deleted Scenes

Synopsis
Ryan Dunne (Freddie Prinze, Jr.) pitches a mean fastball, which is why he's been chosen for the elite Cape Cod Baseball League. A college dropout, he dates a promiscuous local girl and works long hours for his hard-drinking father's landscaping business, tending the lawns of the rich "summer people." One of these lawns belongs to sleek, sexy uptown girl Tenley Parrish (Jessica Biel). Sparks fly between the two, and without a second thought, Ryan trades in his trashy girlfriend for the Ivy League Tenley. Needless to say, her snobby, aristocratic father is horrified that his daughter is dating the lawn boy, and does everything he can to break up their romance.
The star-crossed lovers also face other challenges. Ryan dreams of becoming a major league player, and this summer he might get his big break because the Cape Cod League attracts pro baseball recruiters from around the country. But Ryan too often chokes up on the pitcher's mound--his mother's death and his father's drinking have left him with some pretty heavy baggage to carry. The sensitive and smart Tenley helps her handsome guy overcome his fears, on and off the field. As she tells Ryan, "If you want big rewards, you gotta take big risks."

Customer Reviews

This baseball romance goes down swinging (weakly)
"Summer Catch" is a baseball movie. Local boy Ryan Dunne (Freddie Prinze, Jr.) has made the Chatham A's in the Cape Cod Summer League where he pitches for Coach John Schiffner (Brian Dennehy). This is Ryan's last chance, having ruined two earlier ones, but he has a fear of failure and has been affected by the recent death of his mother. But "Summer Catch" is also a romance movie, where Ryan is smitten by Tenley Parrish (Jessica Biel). He sees her getting out of a pool while he is cutting her father's lawn and if you did not get the message that Biel is no longer playing Mary Camden on "7th Heaven," this moment will help persuade you. Of course, he is from the wrong side of the tracks as far as her father is concerned. Sound familiar yet?

It is interesting that Ryan has a major self-confidence problem because he has no problems running around in a thong belonging to Dede Mulligan (Brittany Murphy). But there have to be obstacles to his pitching success, just as there are obstacles to his romance with Tenley, and we will all pretend to be surprised when the two of them are tied up at the end in one of the most anticlimactic endings I have ever seen in a baseball movie (although I will admit the tag scene was a nice touch). It is just that we have seen this bit about the rich girl and the poor boy so many times, and the film does not take into account the boy wants to be a major league baseball player. I can just see Tenley's dad (Bruce Davison) being introduced to Alex Rodriguez and saying, "What does your father do, son?" (Answer: "Dad ran a shoe store in Manhattan and was a catch for a professional team in the Dominican Republic. How come you make so much less money than I do?").

If the romantic aspect is old hat, the baseball aspects of the film are not even up to minor league standards. Ryan wants to be intimidating as a pitcher, but his brother Mike (Jason Gedrick) suggests that being rich is better. Apparently we get to the final big game of the season and Coach Schiffner never suggested to his young pitcher that where you place the ball can be more important than how fast your throw it. Meanwhile, the team has a star pitcher Corey Pearson who has no concept of being a team player and nobody wants to set this boy straight either. The script by Kevin Falls ("Sports Night") and John Gatins ("Hardball"), based on a story by Falls, should be stronger on the sports aspects given their other writing projects, but that is not the case.

The big question is supposedly whether Dunne can keep it together for an entire ballgame. WHY? The percentage of major league pitchers who throw complete games each year has been dwindling steadily for decades. On top of that, Chatham supposedly has the best relief pitcher in the league (Ryan knows it even if his manager does not). So when he blows a game in the 9th early in the movie, anybody who knows anything about baseball has to be wondering why he is still in there. The baseball scenes are really hit or miss (e.g., if an outfielder picks up a ball at the fence and the running has rounded third, there is not going to be a close play at the plate). Just explain to me why Hank Aaron, who could probably be in any baseball movie being made, chose to be in this one (Okay, I know why: because director Michael Tollin did the 1995 documentary "Hank Aaron: Chasing the Dream"). But then why would they want a plot twist at the end that compels Curt Gowdy to say this is the damnedest thing he has ever seen in fifty years of broadcasting, because that is not necessarily a good thing.

The supporting cast is pretty good, with Matthew Lillard as catcher Billy Brubaker and Fred Ward as Ryan's father, along with Marc Blucas, Wilmer Valderrama, and Christian Kane as other players on the team. Every one in a while they toss some comedy moments in because they are required in a baseball movie, plus the writers did research on the mythology of the Cape Cod League, but they do not always seem to fit, such as the quest of Tenley's little sister, Katie (Zena Grey), to come up with the ideal mascot for the team (but at least that one has a cute payoff). Besides, the biggest sin in this film is wasting Beverly D'Angelo in an uncredited role as a cross between Annie from "Bull Durham" and Mrs. Robinson from "The Graduate," and that is saying something given that Dennehy is almost totally wasted in this film. There is also a nice cameo by Carlton Fisk that got cut that you can check out in the deleted scenes. So despite a likeable cast, "Summer Catch" ends up being a bush league film (I hope the English are spared comparably bad movies combining cricket and romance).

Not a Catch, Not a Strike
Ryan Dunne (Freddie Prinze Jr.) has the chance of a lifetime. This summer, he's part of the prestigious Nantucket baseball league, the league that the pro scouts use to find new talent. Considering his tendency to crash and burn, he needs to cut all distractions out of his life.

But a beautiful distraction comes in the form of Tenley Parrish (Jessica Biel). Ryan and his father take care of the Parrish family yard work. The two are definitely from different classes, but they connect right away. Will they overcome their differences? Can Ryan realize his dream of playing professional baseball?

I went into this movie expecting a romantic comedy and was surprised at just how much of a part baseball played in the story. Still, those scenes never bothered this non-sports person.

What was weak was the writing. The story is one cliche after another, not all of them believable. And that definitely holds true for the climax. Some of the characters made rather abrupt about faces with little to no explanation.

But the characters pulled me into the story. I couldn't help but root for them to find their happy ending. Heck, I even came to enjoy Matthew Lillard's Billy, and actor I often find hard to swallow. The actors really did save the movie for me.

If you are willing to let yourself get swept up in the story, you'll enjoy it. But you aren't missing anything if you skip it, either.