Growing up, Ricky Hill (Jesse Berry) wanted only one thing: to play baseball. Playing, however, is strictly forbidden by his pastor father (Dennis Quaid), even after the boy no longer needs braces on his legs to walk. Eventually, Ricky convinces his father that he is honoring God by playing baseball, and when he grows up (Colin Ford) he becomes one of the star players on his high school’s team. An injury during a game, however, threatens his chances at getting into the majors, but Ricky will stop at nothing to get back on the field and play ball. 

Directed by Jeff Celentano, The Hill is an inspirational sports drama written by Angelo Pizzo and Scott Marshall Smith. From Briarcliff Entertainment, the long-gestating biopic runs a little long-in-the-tooth at 126 minutes as it chronicles Ricky’s childhood through the start of his career in the minor leagues. Shot by Kristopher Kimlin, the dusty golds of mid-century Americana play well over Geoff Zanelli’s hymn-adjacent score, but it all goes down just a little too easy and never quite reaches the heights that it is aiming for. 

The biggest reason for the stumbling success of The Hill is that it never quite defines who the protagonist is. For as much weight as the story puts on Ricky and his pursuit of playing baseball, it also finds itself caught up in his father’s crusade to turn an old church into a worthy house of worship, and with it, bring the townsfolk to light. It is not a bad approach to the story, much of which has been cited by Hill to have remained accurate to his own life, but whereas Ricky has the growth and development of a character over time given his journey in recovery from his injuries and his growing skills on the field, his father has no such arc, at least not one that is so easily measured. There is the feel-good, change of heart at the end, but Quaid’s gruff and gravelly James is not given much of an arc to develop and the character remains as firm in his beliefs when the film opens in flashback throughout almost the entire runtime. 

The flashback, which takes up the first hour, is also another barrier to entry into the film made even more difficult to clear as so much is rooted in the low-hanging anachronisms of the period that it feels more like an SNL sketch than an actual film in how desperate it is to set a time and place. The young cast all mostly hold their own, but it very much feels like it is treading water as emotional beats and key pieces of exposition play out in a loop. Very little moves forward here, and while it is nice that Celentano opts to get all of the backstory out of the way instead of intercutting back and forth to explain why the older Ricky acts as he does, simply put, it runs on for far too long. These sequences feel as if they were ripped from the frame of a Norman Rockwell painting with scrappy young kids in overalls sneaking a peak through a diner window at America’s Game on the small black and white tv above the bar flanked by a Coca-Cola logo and the American flag. Pizzo and Smith try to inject some humor into these scenes, but the jokes seldom land and frankly do not fit the tone of the overall narrative. 

Once the film advances to Ricky playing baseball in high school, The Hill really finds its voice and feels alive. Ford does well in the role, though oftentimes the camera will catch him with the same doe-eyed and dumbfounded look on his face as Ricky gets kicked down again and again. The resilience here is much more engaging as it is not just a boy playing with sticks and stones away from his father’s watchful eye, but there is the real possibility of a future on the horizon for Ricky as Ray (Randy Houser), a local mechanic who has always believed in Ricky, sets up for some recruiters to watch the boy play. Ultimately, The Hill works far better as a sports drama than a faith-based piece, and while the two plotlines are intrinsically linked given Ricky’s upbringing as the son of a pastor, the script is unable to really have the two stories appropriately build off each other. 

As with any genre, it will develop tropes as a form of shorthand that are often tempting to screenwriters, and oftentimes, those tropes are so pervasive in their respective facets of storytelling because they are effective tools; but as with all tools, they must be used properly. Faith-based films often find themselves peddling in these tropes and The Hill is no exception even though it seems to want to break that mold. There is a much more interesting and challenging way to tell this same story about a father and son learning to see eye to eye, but instead, it falls back on pious speeches from the pulpit. It is frustrating how little the screenwriters trust their audience to really challenge the character’s faith, and not even in an ill-conceived way seeking backhanded “gotcha” moments, but just in the very real way that people are tested all the time in real life. James, perhaps through his own refusal to admit his struggle, remains quite blind to the challenges he and his family are facing, and while Quaid plays the pastor as someone who lets it all roll off his back, there is a stubborn hardness there too that makes the character more confusing than intriguing. Without audiences really seeing that struggle, the final speech he gives to his meager congregation does not have the same impact it was intended to as we do not believe that James has actually taken any of the lessons he is sharing to heart. It feels empty because this big moment was filmed with greater importance than and takes the spotlight away from Ricky’s hot streak at home plate hitting back pitch after pitch while being built up to in emotional shorthand. The message of the film would not be lessened by showing a greater battle to maintain the faith, in fact, it would be strengthened by it, but audiences are denied seeing that struggle of man for a far-too-simple resolution. 

The Hill is very well-intentioned but it, oddly enough, lacks faith in itself and its audience to really be the best it possibly can be. Picking up speed in the latter half, the film does tell an inspiring story about a young man who overcame so many physical barriers and achieved his dream, but the script is unable to divorce itself from James’ plight while also not really wanting to show the patriarch and pastor waver in his faith so only about one-quarter of the two-hour film has any stakes that are being worked to and through. Ford wrestles the heart of the story away from Quaid despite the protest on the page, and for good measure. While his performance is not enough to elevate the film out of the realm of cheaply made Hallmark fare, and the simplicity of the characters makes the script feel dated before it was even taken to camera, he puts in the work and clearly delivers more than what was required of him from the page. He is the film’s saving grace because the kind heart he shows is impossible not to sympathize with, juxtaposed with the electricity he brings to the baseball diamond, audiences will find that excitement as they cheer along with Ricky; swing after swing after swing.