Mr. 3000

Day 98 - 4/8/09 - Movie #96

BEFORE: Baseball week continues - as Bernie Mac plays an ex-Brewer who comes out of retirement to get three more hits.

THE PLOT: Aging baseball star who goes by the nickname, Mr. 3000, finds out many years after retirement that he didn't quite reach 3,000 hits. Now at age 47 he's back to try and reach that goal.

AFTER: It's not uncommon for a sports film to work as a morality lesson, but this one works better than most. Mac's character, Stan Ross, has to learn to be humble and unselfish in order to reach his milestone goal - and has to discover that the best kind of player is, in fact, a team player. Good supporting work by Angela Bassett and Christopher Noth. It makes you wonder what Bernie Mac himself was close to accomplishing when he passed away.

RATING: Would have been an 8, but I'm taking one away for having essentially the same climactic baseball play as "Major League" did, so 7 out of 10 souvenir balls.