A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN (1992)

Director: Penny Marshall
Writers:  Kim Wilson, Kelly Candaele
Stars: Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, Lori Petty
Runtime: 128 minutes

Plot: Two sisters join the first female professional baseball league and struggle to help it succeed amidst their own growing rivalry.
Review:  The film's focus is the Rockford (Ill.) Peaches, one of the four clubs that made up the league in its problematical first season. As imagined by Ms. Marshall and her associates, the Peaches are a gallant and somewhat rum crew.
Dottie Hinson (Geena Davis), the team's star player and a crackerjack catcher and a dependable hitter who is so beautiful that she winds up on the cover of Life magazine. On the mound is Dottie's younger sister Kit (Lori Petty). She has a terrific arm but tends to go to pieces when at bat. Keeping things lively in center field is pint-size Mae Mordabito (Madonna), informally known as All the Way Mae, who finds pro-baseball preferable to taxi dancing. Coaching the Peaches, at first with great reluctance, is Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks), a former major league hero disabled by booze and unreliable knees.
While the women on the field are knocking themselves out to achieve fame and glory in a league that embraces just three Midwestern states, the film never strains to get a laugh or make a point. It adopts a summer pace as it follows Dottie, Kit, Mae and their teammates from what is, in effect, boot camp to the league's first world series, in which the Peaches face the Racine (Wis.) Belles.
Director Marshall shows her women characters in a tug-of-war between new images and old values, and so her movie is about transition - about how it felt as a woman suddenly to have new roles and freedom.
Though big of budget, "A League of Their Own" is a very cheerful, relaxed, and easily enjoyable comedy. It's a serious film that's lighter than air, a very funny movie that manages to score a few points for feminism in passing.
 

Reviewed by S.M. Intisab Shahriyar