8) Hardball
Speaking of gems; “Hardball” is absolutely one of them. Keanu Reeves plays a degenerate gambler who agrees to coach a little league baseball team from a poor housing project in the south side of Chicago in order to get out of debt. It’s pretty much the plot of “The Mighty Ducks” but this is basically “The Bad News Bears” meets “The Mighty Ducks,” with a young future star Michael B. Jordan.
The thing that separates this movie from others like it is it’s not one of those “coach takes over a losing team and makes winners out of them” type of story, but it’s actually quite moving how close these young African American players seeking a world outside of the projects they live in whose coach, Reeves, isn’t too far off from life of the gangbangers they’re trying to get away from.
That’s what makes his character arc really special; being their protector becomes the most important thing in the world to him. And he plays it beautifully well with a lot of nuance.