Summer Catch (2001)

Director:

Michael Tollin

Writers (WGA):

Kevin Falls (story)
Kevin Falls (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

24 August 2001 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | Romance | Sport

Tagline:

Are you game?

Plot:

A rich girl whose family summers on Cape Cod has a romance with a local poor boy who hopes to become a major league baseball player.

Plot Keywords:

Baseball | Baseball Player | Rivalry | Cape Cod | Wet T Shirt

Cast

Freddie Prinze Jr.	...	Ryan Dunne
Jessica Biel	...	Tenley Parrish
Fred Ward	...	Sean Dunne
Matthew Lillard	...	Billy Brubaker
Brian Dennehy	...	John Schiffner
Jason Gedrick	...	Mike Dunne
Brittany Murphy	...	Dede Mulligan
Bruce Davison	...	Rand Parrish
Marc Blucas	...	Miles Dalrymple
Wilmer Valderrama	...	Mickey Dominguez
Corey Pearson	...	Eric Van Leemer
Christian Kane	...	Dale Robin
Cedric Pendleton	...	Calvin Knight
Gabriel Mann	...	Auggie Mulligan
Jed Rhein	...	Pete (as Jed Robert Rhein)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for sexual content, language and some drinking.

Runtime:

108 min | Argentina:105 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Colour:

Colour (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

Brazil:14 | Finland:S | Iceland:L | South Korea:15 | Netherlands:AL | Argentina:13 | Germany:6 | Philippines:PG-13 | Singapore:PG | UK:12 | USA:PG-13 | Australia:M

Filming Locations:

Cape Cod, Massachusetts, USA

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

John Schiffner is the real life coach and manager of the Chatham A's.

Goofs:

Continuity: We see several shots of two players on the same team wearing the number "26".

Quotes:

Tenley: You don't understand...
Ryan: Understand what? Being broke? I understand!
Tenley: No...
Ryan: Understand what? Doing something you love? I understand! I love standing on that mound with a baseball in my hand... Staring at a guy holdin' a club *60* feet away... KNOWING... that he can't touch me... It is the only place in the world that I feel powerful...
Tenley: Why are you so scared?
Ryan: Scared of what?
Tenley: Of everything! Success? Love? You say you love getting on that mound and playing baseball! Why would you ever settle for cutting grass?

Movie Connections:

References Wing Commander (1999)

Soundtrack:

Tell Her This

Nice looking actors, but hard to see past the poor script. *1/2 (out of four)

SUMMER CATCH / (2001) *1/2 (out of four)

By Blake French:

"Summer Catch" is nothing but a commercial exploitation of sports, sex, and beautiful bodies. Warner Brothers gives this target audience exactly what they want, but at the same time, deprives them of what they long to watch. It's a late summer release with a lot of hot young stars, clearly aiming for the high school crowd, but it lacks the nerve and edge that other recent teen comedies contain. This one holds back with a PG-13 rating, even though the only remotely entertaining element here is the sex appeal. We have plenty of time to watch scantily clad young women and shirtless young hunks as they tread through a tired, contrived script. The movie ignites our attention as Freddie Prinze Jr. and Jessica Biel make out in a swimming pool half-naked, but never goes all the way. We leave feeling cheated out of some steamy scenes.

No, this reviewer is not a sex-obsessed teenager who goes to the movies on the sole purpose to watch naked actors, but I do know when a movie has sexual potential. "Summer Catch" gives us nothing to do but wonder how far it will allow its characters to go. We do not care about the story, the characters, the sports-all that's recycled from already recycled clichés-we just want to enjoy the sights of sexy young bodies.

"Summer Catch" contains all the crude, rude, and disgusting sexual material like "American Pie 2" and "Road Trip." From bikini-wearing young men, to fat women in bed with horny guys, to cucumbers inappropriately used by Beverly D'Angelo, but the movie is bound to the ground with the studio's gutless PG-13 rating decision. Besides a few decent moments, the sex appeal is the only redeeming element, and the film knows that-but does not take advantage.

The film typecasts Freddie Prinze Jr. as a Cape Cod resident named Ryan Dunne, who spends his time fooling around with the ladies, dreaming about baseball, and doing lawn work with his father (Fred Ward). Ryan has watched many young men play in the summer baseball league designed to impress professional talent scouts looking for potential players. Now it's his chance to show off his stuff when he joins this year's summer team. It includes a variety of macho players, who bunk at willing local residents' houses for the season.

Ryan's mother recently passed away, so it's hard for his poverty-stricken household to make ends meet. He does, however, find a passion with an attractive young woman named Tenley Parrish (Jessica Biel), the daughter of Rand (Bruce Davidson from "X-Men"), a rich lawn client of Ryan's father. She's also attracted to Dunne, although her father wants her to concentrate on her future, which he thinks holds a much better alternative than the lawn boy. She wants to be an architect, but her father wants her to pursue a different future. Ryan and Tenley both struggle with their class differences as well as their parents hopes for their future. Dunne must also examine both his talent and perception on his life when blah blah blah blah.

The film goes on and on. At a lengthy running time of two hours plus, the story conceives so many distractions and unfunny subplots we finally become so wrapped up in who's who in the story that we forget how many clichés it actually uses.

Surprisingly-considering that "Summer Catch" is poorly directed by Mike Tollin, and that it doesn't have a single atom of originality, and that the plot is continually explained through tireless dialogue, and that the characters are so deeply stereotyped it's hard to tell them apart-this movie doesn't do a half bad job of entertaining us. The actors play their characters well. Freddie Prinze Jr. delivers a fair performance with his usual cute, boyish charm. Jessica Biel accomplishes a nice play with her character-she forms solid chemistry between Prinze Jr. Fred Ward creates a bond with Prinze Jr. as well. He makes the perfect failure of a father.

Unfortunately, it's hard to see past the boring, uneventful script. Externally, "Summer Catch" may start to attract our senses, but it does not finish its own play and does not even try to touch our emotions. The movie preaches a message about believing in one's self-it should take its own advice. There is potential here, but "Summer Catch" does not know what to do with it.