Movie Critic - Sugar

It’s been a while folks, and I apologize. But seeing as I no longer have a job I figured I can put a serious dent in my Netflix queue and get back to blogging (or at least I say that but it’ll probably be another month before I write again). Anywho, I’m here to review the film Sugar. In 2007 writing/directing team Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck showed they know one thing, characters. And because of that ma boy the Baby Goose Ryan Gosling got an Oscar nod in their film Full Nelson. Now their focus is on a young Dominican arm Miguel ‘Sugar’ Santos and his young baseball career in the Minor Leagues.
Now I’ll be the first to admit – I’m extremely hard on sports movies. It seems that people just love bad sports movies… there have been plenty. I understand not every sports movie hitting the multiplex can be a Hoosiers, Bull Durham, Tin Cup, or Raging Bull – but have some standards people. I hate when people talk about sports movies and bring up Coach Carter (essentially someone took the Hoosiers script and then made it shitty), Remember the Titans (sensationalizing racism… plus the pretty boy QB is pancaking linebackers), or The Replacements (woof… enough said). I get giddy like a school girl every time a new sports movie comes out that I can actually stand – and folks not only could I stand this one, it was down right fantastic. One of the things that many of the aforementioned great sports movies have is great characters. Not just transparent stereotypes of athletes, they all have legitimate and developed characters. The other thing a great sports movie has is realistic sports action, which Sugar has in spades. There’s not a miss step in any of the baseball action, all of feels real and is filmed perfectly.
One of the more impressive things in this film is the performance of first timer Algenis Perez Soto. According to his imdb page this is his first time out of the gate and I doubt anyone would be able to tell. He plays the character perfectly, there’s not a false note in this performance – whether it’s him pitching, struggling with his English, or having fun with friends. There seems to be a natural sincerity to the character.
Another impressive aspect to Sugar is Boden and Fleck’s direction. From being shot on what seems to be a shoe string budget Sugar moves beautifully from the slums of the Dominican Republic to the farm fields of Iowa to the metropolitan of New York City while never losing its message or purpose. The other thing that impressed me is that it’s apparent that the two are either huge baseball fans or have done a lot of research on Minor League Baseball and the men who pass through it at some point. The authenticity of the movie is shocking for such a small film.
One of the things that made this such a special sports film is that there were many layers. You could look at this as a baseball movie, an immigrant story, or a combination of the two. The performances are strong enough to carry some of the slower moments and make it genuinely believable. Whether Sugar makes it or not is not the main story, his development as a man is what really matters – and the filmmakers make sure it’s not some cheap payoff. Not only is this one of the better sports movies I've seen in a while, it's also one of the better films of 2009. Sugar is 120 minutes long and (for some reason) is Rated R for language, some sexuality and brief drug use – and gets 4/5 Stars.