Official Synopsis:
They were known as the Dream Team - five friends as close as brothers who had chalked up years of sports victories & shared experiences. But in the final summer before leaving their hometown and heading off to college these lifelong friends will grow even closer as they band together to right an enigmatic wrong and redeem the reputation of one of their own even at the risk of sacrificing their individual futures. Against the backdrop of a fateful softball game old scores will be settled and boys will learn what it means to be men.
  
Our Take:
Don’t we all love just a good heartfelt coming of age tale about a group of small town kids who have to learn about growing up and the values of life all with the backdrop of baseball? What’s more American than that? Unfortunately, this formula has been done so much that it’s hard to bring something new to the table. Full Count tries it’s best to bring an edge and darkness to this old tale but it just ends up sinking into the fate that is the clichéd coming of age tale.

The film even starts out with one of the characters all grown up giving a monologue about the old days. Basically it’s just another movie about “that crazy summer” where all of the characters became closer friends and learned to grow up. The film tries to change it up by introducing darker themes; we get introduced to a seemingly evil cop played by Michael Rooker, and there is a tragedy that occurs about halfway into the film, but these elements never really drag the movie out of the depths of triteness.

The film isn’t as sappy as I thought, but it is extremely generic. It has the redundant dialogue of the kids desiring to get out of the town as well as that scene where one of the kids has to have an  intense argument with one of the adults in town, and all the while the kids love to play baseball.

The only highlight of the film is the young cast, who work really well together and have a great rapport. They almost make this tired script sound good… almost. The only problem is that they all look closer to thirty than their late teens. Some of them even look as if they’ve started balding. I wouldn’t normally mention it but it’s absurdly obvious that these guys aren’t even close to playing their age.

La única característica en el DVD es de mirar la película con subtítulos españoles. (The only feature on the DVD is to watch the film with Spanish subtitles.)

Full Count is about as clichéd as its title. Nothing really new is brought to the film and the script almost seems it was cut and pasted from other, better coming of age scripts. My recommendation to you is to just watch a movie like The Sandlot. It may not be as dark or as “edgy” as this film but I’ll take quality over edge any day of the week.

Overall Picture:
Movie: D
DVD: C-

- Adam Rettek
Staff Writer