Field of Dreams

Phil Robinsons's film is another American baseball picture, but it is not so much about baseball as it is a metaphor for America's lost innocence during the sixties and seventies. The film's central character is Ray Kinsella, a Berkeley-educated farmer whose secret fear is turning into a dreamless old man like bis late father. When he hears a mysterieus voice telling him "if you build it, he will come", he constructs a baseball field next to bis house. Some months later, his father's here, the deceased baseball player Shoeless Joe Jackson, appears... The principals of the cast are excellent, each bringing believability to rather unbelievable roles. James Earl Jones dominates every scene that he's in, as does Burt Lancaster in a very brief role, but the picture would not hold together without Costner's soft-spoken every-man quality. (Screen International, 13.5.89)