Summer Catch

Director: Mike Tollin, Michael Tollin Mike Tollin

Overview

This blend of sports and youthful romantic comedy is from director Michael Tollin, who previously produced the sports drama Varsity Blues (1999). Freddie Prinze Jr. stars as Ryan Dunne, a ballplayer who's spending the summer as a pitcher for the famed, highly prestigious Cape Cod League, a non-professional farm team that has turned out numerous baseball legends. Ryan's under special pressure on a number of fronts. He's the first local boy to earn a slot in the league in years, and his blue-collar status earns him the enmity of a hot-shot college teammate, Eric Van Leemer (Corey Pearson). Although he's backed up by his best friend and team catcher Billy Brubaker (Matthew Lillard), Ryan adds more stress to his life by embarking on an affair with a beautiful, wealthy young Vassar graduate, Tenley Parrish (Jessica Biel), who's spending the summer on the Cape with her parents. Tenley is facing her own crisis as her father (Bruce Davison) pressures her to move to San Francisco and work with her uncle, though she'd rather remain in the East and become an architect. Summer Catch is the third onscreen teaming of Prinze and Lillard, and also stars Brian Dennehy, Wilmer Valderrama, Jason Gedrick, Fred Ward, and Brittany Murphy.

Product Details

Release Date:	12/02/2014
UPC:	0888574092160
Original Release:	2001
Rating:	PG-13
Source:	Warner Archives
Language:	English
Time:	1:44:00
Sales rank:	24,727

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Freddie Prinze Jr.	Ryan Dunne
Jessica Biel	Tenley Parrish
Fred Ward	Sean Dunne
Bruce Davison	Rand Parrish
Jason Gedrick	Mike Dunne
Brittany Murphy	Dede Mulligan
Marc Blucas	Miles Dalrymple
Matthew Lillard	Billy Brubaker
Brian Dennehy	Coach John Schiffner
Wilmer Valderrama	Mickey Dominguez
Gabriel Mann	Auggie
Jed Rhein	Pete
Zena Grey	Katie Parrish
Corey Pearson	Eric Van Leemer
Christian Kane	Dale Robin
Randi Lane	Vivi Parrish
Cedric Pendleton	Calvin Knight
John C. McGinley	Phillies Scout (uncredited)
Beverly D'Angelo	Lusty House Mother (uncredited)
Curt Gowdy	Himself
Pat Burrell	Himself
Dave Collins	Himself
Doug Glanville	Himself
Ken Griffey Jr.	Himself
Jeff Kellogg	Himself
Mike Lieberthal	Himself
Hank Aaron	Himself
Dick Allen	Scout in Black Hat
Tracie Dinwiddie	Lauren,Lauren
Susan Gardner	Marjorie
Jack Baun	Chris Hunt
Tim Lucason	Hyannis Batter
Kenny Gasperson	Statistician
Mark Robert Ellis	Umpire
Anghus Houvouras	Fan
Herbert W. Gains	Angry Fan
Tammy Christine Arnold	Vasser Graduate
Thaddeus Hill	Coach Sully
Brock Keene	Chatham Pitcher
Mike Ribaudo	Chatham A No.1
Matt Hobbie	Chatham A No.2
Grif Griffis	Himself
Mike Liberthal	Himself
Mike Aaron	Himself
Randi Layne	Vivi Parrish
Courtney Driver	Jenna
Freddie Prinze	Actor
George Fenton	Composer
Tarsha Vega	Composer

Technical Credits

Kevin Falls

John Gatins

Mike Tollin	Director,Producer,Director
Kevin Falls	Screenwriter
John Gatins	Screenwriter
Herb Gains	Executive Producer,Executive Producer
Marci Liroff	Casting
Dean Mumford	Stunts
Brian Robbins	Producer
Sam Weisman	Producer

Editorial Reviews

The Freddie Prinze Jr. movie has become a category unto itself: constructed with basic genre efficiency and zero sticking power. That's a good way to summarize Summer Catch, an agreeable enough but totally predictable baseball romance that has all the impact of a foul-out to the catcher. Because audiences have grown bored of this lazy enslavement to the status quo, Summer Catch took a beanball to the head from critics. Obviously inspired by Bull Durham -- to the point of having a pitcher don ladies' undergarments, a la Tim Robbins' Nuke LaLoosh -- Summer Catch does occasionally scrounge together some of that film's baseball-in-the-sticks charm. The renowned Cape Cod league for college players is a nice focal point for this brand of sentimentality, and the characters are not all egregious stereotypes. Prinze is fine, perennial collaborator Matthew Lillard is plenty goofy, and Jessica Biel is just enough more than a pretty face to connect. But it all adds up to very little, because nothing feels challenging, funny, or memorable -- just tepid and safe. One can barely mount the energy to curse the film up and down for its faults, because no one moment inspires howls of disbelief. It's just vanilla -- not the good kind of vanilla, but rather, the stale pint at the back of the freezer case, ignored and unseen.

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