Sports movies are another one of the standard Hollywood cliche mill. The hero struggles, then he is given a chance, then he succeeds. More realistically, seldom does this really happen. "Sugar" tells the story of a Dominican baseball star Miguel 'Sugar' Santos (Algenis Perez Soto) and his long uphill struggle to make it into the major leagues.
Every Dominican boy dreams of playing in the majors, Sugar feels like that is his only calling, he has other talents, he is a carpenter as well, he is single handily rebuilding his mothers home. Sugar stays at a baseball camp where the managers teach them everything, from improving their swing mechanics to the words to the National Anthem. They are taught only the basic English words, fly ball, pop up, I got it and even more importantly, home run. The success of Latin ball players like Roberto Clemente are legend, but we seldom hear of the hundreds who get lost in the system along the way.
When players are cut they are expected to leave the camp and not come back, Sugar gets to visit his family on the weekends, he stays with his mother and several other younger siblings. Sugar has a girlfriend that he spends his time with, Reyna (Alina Vargas), but he is more than willing to leave not only her, but his entire family to go to America. One day the Kansas City Royals farm system invites him and his long time best friend, Jorge Ramirez (Rayniel Rufino) to training camp in Arizona. Sugar does so well there that he is invited to go to Iowa to play in the Royal's single A league. There he is like an outsider, so many guys from all over the world have come to play baseball.
Sugar has one thing going for him, he has perfected a curve ball that no one can hit. Sugar misses his family and calls them on a regular basis, he also sends most of his money back home to his family. Sugar is sent to live with an older couple Earl (Richard Bull) and Helen Higgins (Ann Whitney), they have taken in several players over the years, they have a few rules that Sugar must obey, no beer or girls in the house ever and there is also a quiet time. Sugar begins to like the niece of the Higgins family, he meets her one night at dinner, Anne (Ellary Porterfield) is a very religious woman, she invites Sugar to a church group meeting, he goes but is as out of place there as he is everywhere, except on the ball field. On the ball field Sugar excels, when he is called to pitch, he has one good outing after another, the only thing that bothers Sugar is that his friend Jorge is cut from the team, he had been injured the year before and his knees are still sore. This soreness causes Jorge to take it easy on some days, and the team thinks he isn't trying.
One day when Sugar is chasing down a ground ball he trips and hurts his ankle, Sugar is so afraid that this injury will cause him to be sent back home that he actually walks away from the team bus, in his mind it would be better if he just left then to feel the hurt of being cut from the team. Sugar decides to go to New York to stay with his friend Jorge, when he gets there he is surprised to not find him any where he thought he would be at. Jorge isn't working where he said he was working, nor is he living where he said he was. Sugar is forced to stay in a flea bag hotel for three hundred dollars a week, he goes around looking for work, and finds a job in a small diner. When he goes to a carpenter, looking for work, he begins a friendship with the owner, Osvaldo (Jaime Tirelli) is impressed at how hard Sugar is willing to work, Sugar asks Osvaldo if he can work in his warehouse to build a table for his mother, he wants to send it back home to her, as the circumstances of life close in on Sugar things go from bad to worse, he can't pay his rent, he has no money saved up, the team has given up looking for him, his mother tells him to come home and he feels so alone in a city of thousands. The end of the movie is a little bit of a let down, the story keeps your attention throughout it's entirety. The obligatory "this is me now" scenes feel false. Until the last scenes, that feel like a roll call of whose who of baseball's who was and who is, this is still a very good movie.
Yet I must comment on the fact that the story builds a hope that we start to believe in, and I for one was disappointed with the closing scenes. Still this movie transcends the sports genre and becomes a movie about finding one's self worth. On the basis of the story as a whole I give Sugar a 3 and on my avoidance scale a 1, this movie won't be in the theatres long enough to enjoy there, so wait a few months and enjoy this one at home.
Sugar is rated R for Language, some Sexuality and Brief Drug Use
Running time is 1 hr. 54 mins.
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