Finding Buck McHenry (2000)

Ossie Davis saves this movie.Davis plays a school janitor who may or may not be a long vanished Negro League pitching great. He is somehow coerced into coaching a youth baseball team that starts with three (!) kids, one of whom is obsessed with the notion that "Mack Henry" is in fact the legendary (and fictional) "Buck McHenry." As one may expect in a low-budget TV film based on a children's book, the acting is, aside from Davis and his wife Ruby Dee, pretty poor. In particular, the adult male characters seem to have been cut from the same piece of cardboard.Ossie Davis' presence, though, overwhelms everything else. He fills the screen, quite literally, since director Charles Burnett wisely shoots him in closeup as much as possible, knowing full well Davis is the best asset he has.Yes, the plot is thin, predictable, preachy, and treacly, but Davis makes this history lesson on Negro League baseball watchable and even enjoyable. Recommended for kids of all ages and baseball fans.P.S. Hall of Famer and Negro League veteran Ernie Banks gives a dignified and , well, earnest performance.

I just saw this movie on the Hallmark Movie Channel and thought it was one of the best baseball movies I have ever seen. The story was very well done and kept me interested throughout. I also liked the idea of the kid liking baseball cards since I enjoy that hobby as well. I even saw some of the ones I have at home. When they talked about the Negro Leagues it was also interesting to hear. I even learned some things from this movie, like where the Negro Leagues Museum is located. Any baseball fan should watch this movie which is great for the whole family. Ossie Davis as Mack Henry and Ruby Dee as his wife do a great job in this movie as well. Cubs fans will also enjoy seeing Ernie Banks in a small role.

This happened to be on television when nothing better was. There's not an awful lot of actual baseball in this, so if that's what you're looking for, you'll want to continue your exhaustive search. In general, I'm not entirely certain whom this is for. The few attempts at comedy are never funny(then again, they don't appear to be the focus). This is about a kid who forms his own team, and begins to wonder if the janitor Mack Henry is really Buck McHenry, the fictional pro player. It is nice that it is not revealed until the very end if it is him or not, apart from the fact that if it is(I won't give it away; also, do not look at the cast credits here on the site until you've watched it, or decided that you couldn't care less), his new name must not have taken more than a second or two to come up with. Just about every acting performance in this is terrible. The commenting on racism is good, if it can be heavy-handed(also, is it absolutely necessary to defend the whites? I guess they're taking a lesson from Mandela, but still...). Pacing is fine, the 90 minutes could seem longer than they do. I haven't watched anything else by this director; however, I understand that he's usually considerably better than this. I recommend this to people who find the concept interesting, I guess. 5/10

`Finding Buck McHenry' is a strange film. It has all of the trappings of a low-budget ABC `Afternoon Special.' Its performances are wildly uneven. Ossie Davis gives a memorable performance as Mac Henry, the school custodian whom young Jason Ross (played by Michael Schiffman) is convinced is the fictional former Negro League baseball legend Buck McHenry. But Schiffman and the most of the rest of the cast give poor performances. Ruby Dee, Davis' real life wife, plays his movie mate, and has little to do. All of this is a bit surprising since Charles Burnett, who helmed the critically acclaimed `To Sleep with Anger," directed the filmBut the movie does an excellent job of conveying the racism faced by the Negro League players, and doesn't reveal until the end whether Henry is McHenry.Three problems with the plot: McHenry supposedly had three great seasons in the Negro League before disappearing after a brush with the law, and yet was named to its hall of fame. Hall of famers in almost any sport must have a much longer track record than that. Secondly, if Henry is McHenry, he supposedly had been in hiding for 50 years after his brush with the law, even though the movie acknowledges that his `crime' would have long ago been forgotten. Finally, the film wants us to believe that a baseball fanatic like Jason would never have heard of the Negro League, which I find unlikely.