Long Gone

Originally made for HBO, Long Gone, nevertheless suffers most of the drawbacks of commercial made-for-TV movies, especially in its nearly religious adherence to the tele­vision common denominator law (make it palatable to the largest range of people) and its corollary: never put in anything that is beyond the grasp of an eight-year old's mentality. For all of its four-letter words and brief nudity, Long Gone never gets beyond the level of soap opera. William L. Petersen (To Live and Die in L.A.), a fine actor, is truly wasted in the role of Stud Cantrell, a loud-mouth, pea-brain minor-league baseball coach who teams up with a loud-mouth, pea-brain blonde (Virginia Madsen), and a non-loud-mouth, pea-brain kid who can hit, to try and bring his cellar team the pennant. He further enlists the aid of a hard-hitting black catcher (yes, there is a thoroughly safe racial subplot, with a fairy-tale ending). Another subplot has the pea-brain kid sleeping with a pea-brain towngirl. Guess what happens? (Yes, the rabbit kicks the bucket.) As the final game approaches, the owner of the other contending team offers Cantrell a lucrative job for next year, with only one catch--he has to...now, wait for it...throw the game. Do you think he does or doesn't? If you answered in the affirmative, maybe I can interest you in a quality line of watches. Swiss, of course. And very, very cheap. Not recommended.