ChanBot i must have seen a different film!!

Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Francene Odetta It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

SnoopyStyle Henry 'Author' Wiggen (Michael Moriarty) is a pitcher and his best friend Bruce Pearson (Robert De Niro) is a catcher on the major league baseball team New York Mammoths. Bruce is told that he's terminally ill. Henry can be pretty hard on the slow-witted Bruce but he's protective of Bruce especially from Bruce's gold-digging girlfriend Katie. Henry takes lower pay to keep Bruce on the team. Manager Dutch Schnell (Vincent Gardenia) is not happy but forced to accept it. It's a baseball season of ups and downs.De Niro is still an unknown at this point. The on-screen friendship is fine. They would be better served with more screen time together. The baseball action isn't much. Vincent Gardenia is great although I would have liked some more compelling teammates.

wmlopez DeNiro accent changes during his performance. Some scenes he's talking like trailer trash the next like a Italian from the Bronx. This a boring movie. Better to watch the worst MAJOR LEAGUE or BAD NEWS BEARS sequels. They should have used real star ball players from that time they would have improved the movie. They could have had Bench,Rose,Reggie,Seaver,Ryan. But instead we get Yankee uniforms that look like grandma stitched them together. This movie is in need of some pop songs and some sex scenes to give this movie some life. The movie doesn't have the heart of BRIAN'S SONG which also about a dying athlete and his friendship with his team mate.

Michael O'Keefe There's no crying in baseball. That's not exactly etched in stone in Cooperstown. John Hancock directs this tear-jerker based on a novel by Mark Harris. Pro pitcher Henry Wiggen(Michael Moriarty)and catcher Bruce Pearson(Robert De Niro)are as different as night and day. No real chemistry between the two. To be exact, Pearson is a little slow in the brains department and is not much appreciated by any of his fellow teammates. But when Henry finds out that Bruce is suffering from the beginnings of Hodgkin's disease, the red-hot pitcher becomes more helpful and concerned enough to look after Bruce, not knowing how much time is left. As expected once the information is leaked, the whole team ends up knowing of Pearson's plight.I really wish there was more action on the field, but this is written as a drama focusing on a ballplayer. A young De Niro draws all the sympathy possible. Character actor Danny Aiello makes his movie debut as Horse. Tom Ligon plays the flamboyant Piney Woods; and Tom Signorelli plays Goose. Vincent Gardenia as Dutch Schnell is irritating as hell. Also in the cast: Phil Foster, Barbara Babcock, Ann Wedgeworth, Maurice Rosenfield and the chatty Selma Diamond. Nothing wrong with that occasional tear on your sleeve.

cmvoger This movie,"Bang The Drum Slowly", is about much more than a baseball season. Similar stories have been set in other locations, among other groups of men. The field hands in a bunkhouse in "Of Mice And Men", or the military barracks in "The Hasty Heart". These are all stories about friendships among men, at a time when those men need those friendships.When Michael Moriarty learns his friend Robert De Niro is incurably sick and will soon die, he makes a decision to give his friend a final season of friendship and support. These men talk half-bright teenager among themselves, and then try to sound like sports-interview aces in formal situations. Note Moriarty's awkwardness in refusing to have an unwritten clause about not trading De Niro away from the team: "No verbal words. Must be wrote." He is equally awkward, and must move cautiously, in persuading the other players to help, and to keep mum when symptoms of the illness appear. Eventually, everybody is in on the effort to help. De Niro is welcomed into the TEGWAR games, and into the glee club. The team doctor is in the dugout at every game. The patient is able to hold up his end as catcher when the rotation brings him up to catch a game. At bat, it seems his best play all year is to hit a good solid triple and come into third standing up. In what turns out to be his last game, his team-mates see the trouble coming. The first baseman dashes in and snags a pop fly that De Niro can no longer handle himself.In his final monologue, walking away from De Niro's graveside, Moriarty gives what could be considered a strong contender for the best curtain line ever: "From here on in, I rag nobody."