Director : Charles Stone III Starring : Bernie Mac, Angela Bassett Trailer for Mr. 3000 Official trailer (Quicktime) (www.apple.com) Moviecentre.net - Various Trailers (www.moviecentre.net) More Movie Reviews...

Much like George Clooney in From Dusk Till Dawn Mac transcends television, supporting roles, even roles where he was the putative lead, to take center stage, and stay there, in Mr. 3000.

Directed by Charles Stone III (Drumline) 3000 will flummox critics who think that "donut" is just a pastry misspelling but this film has charm, originality, character, and realism. Stone delivers once again.

Mac is Stan Ross, an unlikable, but irrepressible baseball great who is known as "Mr. 3000" for earning 3000 hits and an assured place in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Like Pete Rose or Barry Bonds, Mac is the player you hate to play against but secretly love to have on your team. He doesn't respect his teammates, the team he plays for, the Milwaukee Brewers, nor the game. He loathes the press. Once he achieves his goal, his 3000th hit, he retires, leaving his team in the lurch in the race for the pennant.

As the years pass the sportswriters (who vote players into the Hall of Fame) forget their animosity against Ross, and focus back on that stat, 3000 hits. He gets closer and closer to being voted in. But, as baseball statisticians do the numbers on Ross it's discovered that a game where Ross got three hits, but was cancelled due to rain and then rescheduled, was counted twice. He's actually three hits shy of 3000. The Brewers, desperate to fill up the seats in a lackluster season, allow Ross to return.

The game has changed, however, and so has Ross. He's slower and fatter. The players are faster and, in the person of T-Rex (Bryan White), a hotshot who reminds Ross of himself, cockier. The entrenched manager, Gus Panas (Paul Sorvino) appears so complacent about the Brewers standing that he says almost nothing throughout the entire film. What this could have turned into, unmitigated sap about teamwork and For Love of the Game never happens. The film, which has been in development for ages, is a lot like the game of baseball itself. It has its own pace. It can call time when it wants to. It doesn't even really expect you to be paying that close of attention. It isn't the most dynamic sports film in the world, or the most cerebral, or the most heartfelt. But, like the game you respect it for what it is and its own idiosyncratic integrity.

Mac plays Ross straight. One scene, where Ross sits in front of a TV and takes in the criticism being lobbed at him by sports casters and pundits is just brilliant. Ross is the kind of guy who not only dishes it out, he takes it. He knows its chickens coming home to roost and he sucks it up, even though he hates every second of it. Even in the final games scenes, when everything comes down to it and Mac could earn a Golden Globe for making Ross turn nice he doesn't. He's a skirt-chaser who is full of himself from the first frame to the last in this film. And Mac is tough. He's funny. He's cocky. He's a presence. He plays him like a man.

The language is a little much for a PG-13 movie and parents might want to be aware that a lot of swearing goes on. But they can balance it with a tale of a player who finally learns to play the game of baseball.