Rally Caps
Underdog sports picture/summer camp movie equal parts heartfelt, hokey and humanistic.
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After playing and winning the Audience Choice Award for Narrative Feature at 2022’s Heartland International Film Festival the family sports film “Rally Caps” is premiering at the famed Field of Dreams Movie Site in Dyersville, Iowa this Saturday, Aug. 31 before debuting on video on demand beginning Tuesday, Sept. 10.
Jordy (Carson Minniear) is a tween boy who’s having a rough go of it. His Dad (producer Orien Richman) recently passed away, which drove a wedge between Jordy’s mother Nora (Amy Smart) and his college baseball-playing big brother Rob (Ben Morang).
Jordy, an avowed Baltimore Orioles fan, wants to follow in Rob’s footsteps and become a ballplayer, which is enthusiastically encouraged by their grandfather Herb (Judd Hirsch). Unfortunately, during tryouts a bat flies from a coach’s hands and strikes Jordy square in the nose, breaking it. To add insult to injury the incident was recorded and uploaded to the Internet where it becomes a viral sensation for which Jordy is incessantly bullied. Jordy quits the game before he ever really began.
Jordy quitting baseball comes at an inopportune time as he’s being shipped off to a sports camp for the summer and Rob’s coaching the team on which he was supposed to play. It’s here that Jordy befriends deaf catcher Lucas (Colten Pride), who’s also having to make adjustments in his life after receiving cochlear implants and hearing aids. Lucas coaxes Jordy back onto the pitcher’s mound so they can face off against the camp’s rival team overseen by Coach Casey (Casey Nelson) and led by Frankie (Joseph Mazzilli).
“Rally Caps” is heartfelt, hokey and humanistic. As written (based on the novel by father-daughter duo Stephen J. Cutler and Jodi Michelle Cutler), edited, produced and directed by Lee Cipolla I’d say it’s geared more towards children as opposed to adults. It’s an underdog sports movie. It’s a summer camp movie replete with food fights and first kisses (Jordy shares one with Lucas’ sister Niki (Pride’s real-life sister Noelle – they’re the children of hearing-impaired former Major Leaguer Curtis Pride, who cameos as himself). It’s a familial drama concerning overcoming one’s fears and learning to forgive those you love. It seems like a movie that would be perfectly programmed for late elementary or early middle schoolers by a substitute teacher.
The performances of the child actors vary greatly with Minniear being the standout burdened with the heaviest lifting. (Some of the kids’ dialogue rang false to me as well, but what do I know as a middle-aged childless person.) The adult actors fare better (I especially enjoyed the energy brought by James Lowe as Jerry Nathan AKA Coach Ballgame (a mantle he proudly wears in actuality), the camp’s announcer and director of baseball operations.), but a lot them would’ve benefitted from doing more. Smart and Hirsch are both fine, but appear to have only worked a few days on the picture and are mostly relegated to a living room set where they’re making and taking phone calls or are reacting to remotely-filmed baseball footage.
“Rally Caps” could be a homer for families and kids of a certain age (I’m thinking 8 to 12) – to this cynical critic it was a solid double during which I laughed a little and cried a lot.