Sometimes film plots are just too fantastic to be believable.
We thought “this would never happen in real life,” when we heard the premise. But once in a while, you get a film that has an unbelievable plot and realize that you can’t say it would never happen in real life, because it already did. Craig Gillespie’s Million Dollar Arm is the ultimate true rags to richest, underdog story. It follows Jon Hamm as sports agent J.B. Bernstein who goes to India to stage the Million Dollar Arm contest where the winner would come to America to train for a possible Major League Baseball contract. The two winners of the contest Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel, played respectively by Suraj Sharma and Madhur Mittal, arrive in America after the contest concludes. Lake Bell also makes an appearance as Brenda, J.B.’s tenant.
The film itself provides beautiful little quirks about actual Indian culture: fun tidbits such as the enormous amount of car honking that occurs on Indian highways and streets or even seeing animals traveling along town sidewalks with people. There’s a shot in particular where Jon Hamm is using his computer on the roof of the hotel he’s staying at and the the buildings around him are shadowed. The entire scene just conveys a sense of the mystery India offers to foreigners. An extensive use of Indian landmarks are presented as Jon Hamm does a scene entirely in front of the Taj Mahal in Agra.
The musical score is yet another home-run by the acclaimed A.R. Rahman. In this soundtrack, not only does A.R. do what he does best in highlighting Indian culture by utilizing strings, but he also incorporated a myriad of modern musical touches by collaborating with artists such as Wale, Iggy Azalea, and KT Tunstall. The use of these artists comes particularly into play when our heroes Rinku and Dinesh come to America. At this point much of the modern section of the soundtrack is brought out and the transition of the two players is highly accentuated.
Overall the film is solid and Jon Hamm gives a very Don Draper-esque performance as the high powered sports agent J.B. Madhur Mittal is a crowd favorite as usual and his collaborator from Slumdog Millionaire, A.R. Rahman is excellent as expected. The film’s plot can be a lot to take in at points because of its inherent “one-in-a-million” feel, but because it is in fact a true story it morphs into an extremely feel-good film that can inspire anyone that watches it.
Disney’s Million Dollar Arm is now playing.
