The Final Season

Usually when baseball movies are made their either about the major leagues or a little league team, but here we're shown the final season of a high school baseball team that had won 19 state championships. This story is based on the true events surrounding the last season that was played by the Tigers of Norway Iowa. The two actors that stand out in this film are Powers Boothe and Sean Astin, both roles are pivotal in the story but their played with such vigor and honesty that your left wondering how close they were to the actual people.
When it's decided that Norway Iowa, schools will be absorbed into a larger system, the residents find out that their championship winning high school baseball team will no longer exist. The messages that this story gives to the audience are great building blocks for society, and having the whole story geared towards young adults in high school is even better. Where this is based on a true story you almost expect someone to ride in and save the town and their team but keeping true to life the ending is realistic and not candy coated like most movies of this type.
I watched this film on the recommendation of a friend and was amazed at how good and strong the story was. Seeing the hardships that the residents of this small community go through is so well portrayed that you get the feeling that some of the actual residents of Norway took part in the filming. The best thing that I can say about this film is that its one of the better baseball films to come down the pike in a long time, and with the issues of friendship, community and commradery it's a film that you can have the kids watch and they might walk away with something more than just sitting there for 2 hours.