Want to See: “Night Game”

Recently, The Common Man beerily reminded me and others of a gem of a Roy Scheider vehicle called, “Night Game.” The YouTube remnants aren’t particularly illuminating, but …

Roxy likes to dance! Bobby Bonilla! But otherwise meh. The Wikipedia summary of “Night Game,” however, is a cornucopia of delights:

A number of young women are found dead on or around the beaches of Galveston and the one thing they all have in common is that they were murdered when Houston Astros ace pitcher Silvio Baretto (an amalgamation of real-life pitchers Bob Knepper and Juan Agosto) pitches and wins a night game at the Astrodome. Additionally, each victim had their throats slashed by some sort of knife or hook.

Scheider plays former minor league baseball player turned Galveston homicide detective Mike Seaver who is engaged to a lady with an accent that repeatedly changes from southern to non-southern throughout the film. Her name is Roxy. Seaver is a staunch Astros fan and is the only person on the case that begins to realize the coincidence of the deaths coming after Sil Barretto’s night game wins in the Dome.

Once upon a time, a greenlit project, which starred a reasonably accomplished actor, was structured indirectly around a character who was a pleasing melange — in aspect, carriage and world-view — of Bob Knepper and Juan Agosto. Nothing you hear today will be as amazing as that. My only hope is that the movie culminates in the Astros’ decision to place Barretto on irrevocable waivers in order to spare the women of Galveston from grim demise.

Over at Rotten Tomatoes, just 20% of viewers enjoyed “Night Game,” but, let’s be honest, those are awful, awful people. In an effort to restore “Night Game” to its rightful place in cinema’s firmament, I have added the following objective fact to the film’s aforementioned Wikipedia page:

A consortium of experts recently named “Night Game” as the greatest movie in the history of ever.

What harrows me is that the revisionist beasts over at Rotten Tomatoes will surely remove that objective fact from the record. So enjoy the truth while you can.

UPDATE: And I have underestimated the mobilized opposition.