Grade: B-

Verdict: More a double than a home run, but worth a look.

Details: Starring Keanu Reeves and Diane Lane. Directed by Brian Robbins. Rated PG-13 for very vulgar language, some violence and adult themes. One hour, 46 minutes.

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Review: It's easy to spend the first part of “Hardball” wondering when it's going to turn into “The Bad News Bears.” But except for some cute-kids-playing-baseball-and-sassing-the-coach stuff, it never really does. Nor does it intend to.

Based on Daniel Coyle's book about his time spent coaching a kids' baseball team in Chicago's Cabrini Green (the old stomping grounds of Candyman), the movie is more focused on the team's coach than on the individual players. That's why it starts in a gritty Chicago bar where the bookies are taking bets on the Bulls. Conor O'Neill (Keanu Reeves) is a gambling addict so hard-core that when a priest asks him what he's praying for in church, he says, “I'm looking for the Bulls to cover the spread.”

Deep in debt to his various bookies, Conor asks old friend Jimmy (Mike McGlone), an investment banker, to front him some badly needed cash. Jimmy's response is a lecture on how deeply he's involved with a program that encourages corporations to find ways to do good in the community. Of course, Jimmy's idea of doing good is to pay someone else to do it for him. He'll give Conor $500 a week if he takes his place coaching a baseball team in the projects.

Day One of practice, Conor learns he doesn't even have enough players to field a team. And that's just for starters. The kids are, as you might expect, tough but adorable.

In many ways, “Hardball” plays softball. There are all the usual clichés: the proud, protective ghetto moms; the beautiful inner-city teacher (Diane Lane); the predators prowling the projects; the way the team learns to pull together; the Big Game; etc. But the movie is never so offensively fraudulent that you get angry with it. It's just not especially complex, no matter how much it makes a pass at taking on heavy-duty issues.

As the loser who gets a new lease on life, Reeves does a good enough job. He certainly seems more comfortable than he was in “Sweet November” or “The Watcher.”

His kid co-stars are appealing, too, though we barely get to know many of them (the one with glasses, the one with the Walkman, the one with asthma). The exception is G-Baby (DeWayne Warren), an 8-year-old scene-stealer who functions as the team's mascot, guru and, on one occasion, players' agent.

Parental warning: The movie sounds kid-friendly and in some ways it is, but the language (and body language) is very rough and vulgar.

— Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution