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The Phenom

The Phenom (2016)

June. 24,2016
|
5.2
| Drama

Major-league rookie pitcher Hopper Gibson has lost his focus. After choking on the mound, he’s sent down to the minors and prescribed sessions with an unorthodox sports therapist, who pushes him to uncover the origins of his anxiety.

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Hottoceame
2016/06/24

The Age of Commercialism

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CommentsXp
2016/06/25

Best movie ever!

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BelSports
2016/06/26

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

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Erica Derrick
2016/06/27

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

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Ian
2016/06/28

(Flash Review)With an intriguing story of a major league pitcher needing a sports psychologist to help him regain his pitching command, this film had a lot going for it in addition to its unique plot. As it sets a confident atmosphere, competent acting, interesting pacing, editing with some nice long shot holds and framing composition. Where it threw its wild pitches was in tying all the scenes together and diving a bit deeper into certain characters and plot points. It failed to emotionally connect with me. I never truly felt the pitcher's strife; as much as the lighting tried to help from scene to scene. Many scenes were really good stand-alone scenes yet never added up to a great unified whole. Back to the plot, you learn what are some causes for his on the mound distractions and a couple vague ways he tries to resolve them. Can he conquer them and regain his pitching dominance? Overall it felt uneven and had a very abrupt ending; not in a clever way either.

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somf
2016/06/29

This is a strong character study. I really enjoyed it, but it is not a sports movie, at least not what one thinks of a typical sports movie. Strong acting throughout elevate this from being a pretty run of the mill character study. I really enjoyed hating the Ethan Hawke character. At times I thought the character was slightly over the top, but I still liked it. Worth watching. Just a word of warning, if sports movies are your favorite genre, you may want to reset your expectations a bit before watching. You will probably enjoy it more.

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Bob Rutzel
2016/06/30

Major League Pitcher Hopper Gibson (Johnny Simmons) is sent down to the minors because he lost his pitching mojo. He is assigned to Dr. Mobley (Paul Giamatti) a renowned sports psychologist. Hopper's overbearing father Hopper Sr (Ethan Hawke) makes his presence known as he just out of prison. So I see the title and jump at this movie hoping to see something like Roy Hobbs (from the Natural) in earlier days. Didn't happen. This is a talk- fest and I am not sure we got all of the movie or the script or something that would make sense of this. The ending came so quickly without anything being resolved that I had a hard time figuring this out. Maybe you will have better luck, but truth be told I advise all to stay away. There are many uncomfortable scenes with Hopper and Hopper Sr, who is not physically abusive, but is verbally abusive and his son just quietly takes it. At a family dinner with Hopper's girl friend Rachel (Marin Ireland) the music was so annoyingly loud to a point we could barely hear what was being said. Ethan Hawke (following his part of the script) is okay but we don't like seeing this abusive side of anyone. Paul Giamatti as Dr. Mobley tries too hard with unnecessary facial expressions. There are a couple sub plot that don't go anywhere.This appears to be half of a movie, a script or some kind of a half-told story to help Hopper get his mojo back. We do not see any real baseball games or parts of. We do see Hopper on the mound, at times, looking lethargic or out of focus. Just so you know: this is an under-developed story the way I saw it. Good luck with it. (2/10)Violence: No. Sex: No. Nudity: No. Language: Yes, at times, not much but there.

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abadguy44
2016/07/01

I went into this movie with the expectations of a more orthodox time line. About a young pitching prodigy from his early days in High School to his troubled journey in the Major Leagues. The story scratched the surface of his overbearing Father and his mental state as to why he was having trouble throwing strikes, But for me, the movie never tied it all together. All the characters in the movie were never fully developed enough to explain the reason for Hopper's problem. I was waiting for the progress made by Hopper in his sessions with Dr. Mobley playing out on the field or the root of the problem being revealed finally at the end. That never materialized. The ending left you wanting more meat on the bone. I was very disappointed with this movie because it had a good premise but was too superficially told to make any impact on the viewer.

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