S.F. Asian American

American Pastime

By DENNIS HARVEY

A Warner Home Video presentation of a T&C Pictures, ShadowCatcher Entertainment and Rosy Bushes production. Produced by Barry Rosenbush, Tom Gorai, Terry Spazek. Executive producers, David Skinner, Arata Matshushima. Directed by Desmond Nakano. Screenplay, Nakano, Tony Kayden, from a story by Nakano.
 
With: Gary Cole, Leonardo Nam, Aaron Yoo, Masatoshi Nakamura, Judy Ongg, Jonathan Gries, Susanna Thompson, Seth Sakai, Sarah Drew.
 

Spinning a sad chapter in U.S. race relations history into inspirational underdog sports drama, "American Pastime" is a crowd-pleaser that duly won the audience award for narrative feature at the San Francisco Asian-American Film Festival. Slickly handled pic is skedded for DVD release by Warner Home Video on May 22, with broadcast dates sure to follow.

The Nomuras are an all-American family, circa 1941, whose Japanese emigre parents (Masatoshi Nakamura, Judi Ongg) have carved out a typical working-class existence in East L.A. First-generation Yank son Lyle (Aaron Yoo) plays sax with a rainbow-hued clique of teenage friends and bandmates.

That ends with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Suddenly all Nippon-heritage citizens near the West Coast are relocated to inland camps, separated from their homes and businesses. The Nomuras are dumped in a makeshift Utah desert facility where they are bossed around by heavy-handed minders, including a local racist, Billy Burrell (Gary Cole), whose attitudes only harden when he learns his son has been killed in combat.

This renders even more awkward the eventual budding romance between Burrell's musically inclined daughter Katie (Sarah Drew) and Lyle.

Moreover, Billy is the star of a minor league baseball team that faces a challenge from a team in the Topaz camp, which features ace pitcher Lyle, whose athletic scholarship was terminated by the war.

Pic sometimes falls into the trap of having character behaviors reflect p.c. modern-day values rather than what would have been credible during the period portrayed. There are moments of routine melodrama, predictably escalating in the last reel.

Still, it's an engaging entertainment assembled with skill by co-scenarist/helmer Desmond Nakano in just his second folding-chair stint (first was 1995's underrated racial allegory "White Man's Burden") following diverse screenplay gigs ("Last Exit to Brooklyn," "American Me").

Period trappings are solid, production package ditto, perfs accomplished.

Camera (color, DigiBeta), Matthew Williams; editor, Mark Yoshikawa; music, Joseph Conlan; production designer, Christopher Demuri; costume designer, LaWane Boltz; casting, Vickie Thomas, Yoko Narahashi, Cate Praggastis. Reviewed on DVD, San Francisco, March 22, 2007 (In San Francisco Asian-American Film Festival.) Running time: 105 MIN.