Movie Review: The Hill

The Hill is a run-of-the-mill inspirational baseball movie about how one man beat the odds to make it to the pros with the help of the people around him, hard work, and determination. The film was co-written by Angelo Pizzo, a screenwriter who has made a living off writing inspirational sports films. He has written such films as Hoosiers and Rudy, along with a few other inspirational sports films, all focusing on underdogs who gutted it out to live their dreams.

The Hill is not nearly as good as Pizzo’s previous films. In fact, it is just not a good movie. While the story is one many people may not know and is inspiring enough, the excessive melodrama, weak acting, and overlong runtime bog down the entire film.

Rickey Hill isn’t a baseball player you probably know by name. You’ve probably never heard of him unless you are a die-hard baseball fan with expertise in Montreal Expos minor league players. Hill grew up in a small, impoverished Texas town with dreams of playing professional baseball despite having a degenerative spine disease that has a young Rickey in leg braces. Rickey’s stern and religious father (Dennis Quaid) forbids Rickey from playing baseball to protect him from injury and with hopes of having him follow in his footsteps as a pastor, while others in the town are convinced that Rickey has a gift.

As Rickey gets older, the leg braces come off and he strives for his dream of playing professional baseball. But, with his spinal disease only getting worse, other injuries, financial worries, and the continued disapproval from his father, Rickey’s struggles begin to overwhelm him, and he starts to question whether or not his dream is worth it.

Rickey Hill’s story is incredible and perfect for an inspirational sports movie. Hill went through hell and back several times fighting for his dream, facing injuries, and setbacks, and fighting for his father’s approval, arguably the toughest battle Hill had to face. It’s a wonderful story about perseverance, determination, and following your dreams.

Hill’s story should be known by everybody, but anyone wanting to learn about it would be better off reading a Wikipedia entry or another website or literally anything else than watching this film. The Hill is unbearably slow and never interesting, and the characters are one-note cliches. All we know about Rickey, who is played by Jesse Berry as a kid and Colin Ford as a teenager, is that he wants to play professional baseball and will literally risk his body to do so. His father is heavily religious and follows the word of God over what is best for his family. These two have the most characterization in the film. Ricky’s mother, his brother and sister, and his grandmother (played by Bonnie Bedelia) might as well have not been in the movie because they are all given one thing to do and have no depth. The mother cries, the grandma yells and makes speeches defending Rickey against his father, his brother defends him against bullies, and his sister just happens to be around.

The Hill might be the longest two-hour movie I have seen in 2023. The film drags along while offering nothing to make it pop. There is no moment of excitement and any scene that tries to play for sympathy or emotion comes off as cheesy or unintentionally amusing. The baseball scenes are poorly constructed and edited to pieces. I don’t think any actor playing baseball in this film has ever held a baseball bat, let alone swung one, which makes these scenes look so unbelievable I couldn’t help laughing.

Rickey Hill’s story is incredible and inspiring, so it’s a real shame a film about him is so bad. Thanks to the overly melodramatic acting and score, terrible baseball scenes, and bland filmmaking, The Hill is closer to a made-for-TV Lifetime Original Movie than a theatrical movie you should spend money on. 

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