Roy Scheider plays Mike Seaver, a Texas police detective (and former ballplayer) who picks up the trail of a serial killer in this very pedestrian thriller. The hook here is that the killers' attacks are tied in to night games at the Houston Astrodome. Roy's impending marriage to the much younger Roxy (Karen Young) forms a subplot, as does Roy's vendetta against a fellow detective, Broussard (Paul Gleason) whom he believes to be corrupt.A rock solid cast does the best that it can with this routine script by Spencer Eastman and Anthony Palmer. (Palmer also plays the supporting role of Mendoza.) Peter Masterson is a good director, and the movie isn't incompetently made, but it's of no real distinction. It's pretty predictable, although it might hold the attention of some viewers because of its brutal murders, location filming, and fine performances. It's gorgeously shot by Fred Murphy, and the score by Pino Donaggio is okay but it's definitely not as memorable as the scores he composed for features such as "Carrie", "Piranha", "Dressed to Kill", and "The Howling". Pacing is mostly decent, but the movie is just not that exciting, even in its final act when Seaver realizes who the killer is and races to prevent them from committing another murder.Scheider is fine as always in the lead, even not having that much to work with. Young is radiant and appealing as his love interest. Gleason is amusing in one of his typical jerk roles, and Richard Bradford glowers and rants adequately as Scheiders' commanding officer. Lane Smith is rather wasted as a government man named Witty. Carlin Glynn (Mastersons' wife) plays Scheiders' domineering future mother-in-law; Rex Linn of 'CSI: Miami' makes one of his earliest feature film appearances.This is watchable enough but completely forgettable once it's over.Five out of 10.

My endless search for baseball movies led me to a beat-up VHS copy of NIGHT GAME purchased off Amazon for 1¢. A serial killer flick with a baseball connection? This I had to see.The plot, or at least the motive of the killer, was intriguingly unique: a reliever cut from the team exacts revenge by using his hook (which replaced his throwing hand lost in a bus accident that occurred when he was going back to Triple-A) to slash blonde women who resemble his replacement's new wife, striking when the new star pitcher posts a win. Cool, right? Like the movie BLINK, this killer's motive is unlikely but plausible; it could have made a decent movie (like BLINK).But NIGHT GAME --um, don't want to go there...but..okay -- strikes out with poor directing, most notably in the complete lack of suspense during the stalk sequences. This is one of those movies where the female victims do nothing to defend themselves, actually putting themselves in unnecessary danger. The worst offender is the last victim. Question for the ladies: If you were being followed by a creepy truck in the middle of the night, would you run into a construction site, up the stairs, with your shoes off? Suppose you would; after stepping on a nail, would you cower on the edge of the floor begging for mercy, or pick up a 2x4 and defend yourself? One other attack doesn't make much sense either. Two young ladies are murdered inside a carnival's house of mirrors. Now, wouldn't you think somebody would notice a guy with a hook for a hand enter/exit the attraction? With a serial killer on the loose who already killed an employee of the carnival, security would be stepped up just a bit, don'tcha think? One expects these lapses in a Jason flick, not a supposedly serious movie starring the man who killed Jaws. These scenes (actually, every scene in the movie) are directed with the minimum amount of energy required, and so forty minutes into the movie you're wondering how much longer 'til the end.There's not enough bloodshed here to satisfy the gore crowd, only one gratuitous boob shot to please those looking for gratuitous boob shots, and not enough actual baseball intertwined with the plot to make those like me recommend it on those grounds. In fact, the only things I got out of this movie are some shots of the Astrodome and some movie-geek trivia: here's a movie with actors from Jaws 1-2 (Scheider) and 4 (Karen Young I think her name is, possessor of aforementioned boob). Too bad Dennis Quaid or Lea Thompson didn't make an appearance.

****SPOILERS**** Towards the end of the movie "Night Game" Houston Astro pitcher Sil Daretto, Alex Garcia, walks off the pitchers mound as the game is about to start and to the surprise and astonishment of all those on the baseball field and in the stands walks over to newlyweds Mike & Roxy Sever, Roy Scheider & Karen Young. Daretto congratulates them on their wedding and sincerely tells Mike & Roxy to enjoy the game, the nightmare was at last over for all of them.A number of young women were found dead in and around the beaches of Houston and Galveston and the one thing they all had in common is that they were murdered when Houston Astro ace pitcher Sil Daretto pitched and won a night game at the Astro-Dome. They also they had their throats slashed by some hook that the killer used. The movie "Night Game" mixes baseball with murder in this very unusual story about a disgruntled former Houston Astro player Floyd Epps, Rex Linn, who was cut by the team to make room for Daretto and on top of all that lost his pitching hand in a bus accident as he was leaving. Epps wants to upstage Daretto when ever he wins a ballgame by committing a murder that same night and getting the headline for his crime over Daretto victory. It's Epps' insane way of getting even for what he holds Daretto responsible for; the loss of his job being a pitcher for the Astros and his left hand. Roy Scheider sleep-walks through his role as a former baseball player now Galveston policemen and the movie is better then the average made for TV movie even though it isn't but should have been one. The ending was a bit ridicules with Epps chasing Roxy all over the catwalk outside a waterfront restaurant with Roxy not having the sense to get inside and thus not getting trapped by the insane hooked killer. In fact Roxy actually ran outside the eatery as she saw Epps and easily got trapped by him. Mike came to Roxy's rescue in just the nick of time with Rex hook and all getting dumped in the ocean below after taking a number slugs from Mike's revolver.Dopey but watchable film that was a bit too unbelievable not in the fact that Epps was a crazed former baseball player who felt that he got a raw deal from life and wanted to rectify it in his own crazy way. As you would have expected the local police as well as the Texas justice department were so slow and incompetent in realizing who Epps was when the evidence was right in front of them, the man the hook and the motive, but were just too blind to see it.

. . . this what the serial killer movie looked like. The plot is leaky to say the least: someone would have picked up on the fact that the murders only occur when the local team plays, and when a certain player scores. The fact that he kills with a hook would get out, and someone would immediately remember a disaffected loner with a hook for a hand. FBI Behavioural Sciences would solve this in a day.The director seems immensely impressed with the fact he's filming in Texas, far from the gaze of Studio execs, and packs in endless loving aerial vistas. His visual style is stuck in TV Movie Lite, and along with the soundtrack could have originated from anytime since 1972. Only the clothes and hairstyles suggest its 80's dating, and even those seem stuck in a timewarp from 1985 rather than 1989.Roy Scheider looks embarrassed, Karen Young flashes her breasts in the first 10 minutes. Subplots about Scheider's character's father's links to organised crime and tension with his girlfriend's mother (who he dated in High School) detract from the story and go unresolved. One face to watch out for: the blonde victim in the Hall of Mirrors is played by Renee O'Connor, Xena's sidekick Gabrielle. I only watched the rest of the film because I thought I recognised her face and wanted to check the credits!