Eight Men Out
Eight Men Out
PG | 02 September 1988 (USA)
Eight Men Out Trailers

Buck Weaver and Hap Felsch are young idealistic players on the Chicago White Sox, a pennant-winning team owned by Charles Comiskey - a penny-pinching, hands-on manager who underpays his players and treats them with disdain. And when gamblers and hustlers discover that Comiskey's demoralized players are ripe for a money-making scheme, one by one the team members agree to throw the World Series. But when the White Sox are defeated, a couple of sports writers smell a fix and a national scandal explodes, ripping the cover off America's favorite pastime.

Reviews
grantss

The story of the infamous 1919 World Series scandal in which the Chicago White Sox deliberately lost the series after taking bribes. Superb sports drama, and one of the best sports movies ever made. Shows well how the events unfolded, what lead to the throwing of the World Series and the sad aftermath. Well told by director John Sayles - a highly engaging drama that never gets bogged down. Its focus may well be on baseball but its really a character-based drama.Solid performances all round.

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Predrag

This was a great movie. The story of the 1919 Black Sox Scandal as portrayed by John Sayles was truthful to the real events of that World Series. The cast gave such wonderful performances as players and owners that you can understand how this could happen. You feel bad for the players. When asked about their bonus and they only are given the champagne, you see the hurt in their faces, and it is painful to see. John Cusack and D.B. Sweeney were great as Buck Weaver and Joe Jackson. Their performances showed a great love for the game. The film also contains scenes showing how different groups of the conspiring gamblers were double-crossing one another as well as the players they were conspiring with. An interesting side element of which I had been previously unaware. The cast is absolutely top-drawer, including Charlie Sheen, D.B. Sweeney (both of whom were already good high school and college baseball players, respectively, in real life), John Cusack, Michael Lerner, David Strathairn, Christopher Lloyd, Clifton James, Michael Rooker, John Mahoney, Studs Terkel, and several other fine actors.The real moral compass of "Eight Men Out" is Buck Weaver, played by John Cusack, in what may have been the performance of his career. Sayles' Weaver is portrayed as the victim of the ultimate betrayal for not participating in the scheme. His teammates don't back him up. The courts do not defend him. The press lumps him together with the guilty. His only crime was not being a snitch. And for that, Weaver has basically been relegated to baseball history's limbo, in spite of an above-par career. Sayles does an admirable job in evoking a justified sympathy for Buck Weaver, and Cusack captures it beautifully.Overall rating: 8 out of 10.

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SnoopyStyle

The Chicago White Sox of 1919 is the best team of their time. After winning the pennant, their owner Comiskey (Clifton James) cheap out on the players at every turn. When lowlifes Sleepy (Christopher Lloyd) and Billy Maharg (Richard Edson) approach the players, they scheme to throw the World Series for $10,000 each player. Many of the players went along with the scheme.The story is a little complex. I'm sure some baseball historians point to some of the flaws of the movies. It's not a simple story with many character with different motivations. David Strathairn plays the sympathetic pitcher Eddie Cicotte with great conviction. John Cusack is the idealistic George 'Buck' Weaver. There are many great performances from these great actors. That's the most impressive aspect of this movie. Despite the massive cast of characters, nobody is ever truly lost in the crowd. Everybody stands out due to the superior acting.

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alaspiaggia

My perspective on Eight Men Out is different than most...I was an extra, recognizably (if you knew me) visible in at least two scenes. In fact, so close in focus was I that the assistant director eventually told me that they couldn't use me any more, because I had been "seen", meaning, I guess, that people would notice me in several different scenes. Not only did I learn about the baseball history depicted, but I learned about movie making, too. I worked at several of the Indianapolis shooting locations, including the Scottish Rite Cathedral, and what was then "Victory Field", the home of the Triple A Indianapolis Indianapolis Indians. It was trippy filming there, as I had been there for many games over the years as an Indians fan. For some of the shots, they couldn't get enough extras to show up to make the crowd, so they had to put cardboard cut-outs (called "standees" now?) in the stadium seats. The first day I showed up, I met the extras casting director, Avy Kaufman...she said, "I like your face", and sent me to wardrobe to get my period suit, shoes and hat---I was in! Thus began what would be a string of very long---but rewarding---days, for the grand sum of $20 per day, cash, paid out of a box in the semi-darkened parking lot. One day we did a double shift---16 hours---and got paid $40. We were fed in the same room, but not at the same table, as the actors. It was really neat being just a few feet away from these actors, some of whom I had seen in sitcoms and movies...Mahoney from Cheers, Lloyd from Back to the Future, Anderson from, among others, a Twilight Zone episode, and, of course, Studa Turkel and John Sayles. And note one other young actor in the cast: Charlie Sheen---should have gotten his autograph while I had the chance! The man who played the jury foreman, Rich Komenich had, years before, dressed up in a costume for a popular areas pizza franchise, and I had partied with him thanks to a woman I date. I remember the frequent chemical odor from the "smoke" or "fog" machine,since they fogged most of the indoor shots, apparently to cover up certain set details. Then there were the crude antique flash units we "reporters" had to hold up when when they shot the press conference held by Clifton James' character, Commiskey, the laborious to lace up period shoes that were closer to boots,the molded plastic ice cubes in the cocktail glasses we used in Michael Lerner's Rothstein scene, and the infrequent mouthing of nonsense lines to fake conversation of the background extras. If I had been a smoker, I would have been standing right next to Lerner in that scene, but I couldn't fake proficiency at a habit I didn't have. Perhaps what was more surrealistic than anything else was the contrast between how some of the extras looked in their period costumes, and how they looked in their street clothes before or after we changed...everything from gym shorts and t-shirts to overalls. I got such a big kick out of watching myself when this movie premiered the next year...realizing my screen "performance" will outlive me. A great movie and a great experience....

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