“IT AIN’T OVER,” an “intimate and revealing” documentary on late Baseball HOFer YOGI BERRA that hits theaters in N.Y. and L.A. on Friday before going nationwide next Friday, takes viewers “beyond the caricatures and ‘Yogi-isms,’ painting a complete picture of a sports legend,” according to Bryan Hoch of MLB.com. The 98-minute film features interviews “with a legion of baseball greats,” including DEREK JETER, JOE TORRE, MARIANO RIVERA, DON MATTINGLY and TONY KUBEK, among others. There also is commentary from BILLY CRYSTAL, BOB COSTAS, SUZYN WALDMAN and VIN SCULLY, plus “photos and eye-opening archival footage from on and off the diamond” (MLB.com, 5/11). USA TODAY’s Josh Peter writes the film, like Berra himself, is “easy to love.” Director SEAN MULLIN “captures the heart, humor and depth” of the three-time AL MVP (USA TODAY, 5/12).
TRANSCENDING RIVALRIES: In N.Y., Tony Paige wrote fans who “dislike New York sports teams with every fiber in your body … will still love the documentary.” What “brings the film to life” are the “stories, the laughs, the old black and white photos and film of Berra as a Yankee from a faraway era.” The film “isn’t all baseball and Yoo-hoos,” as it goes into how Berra “dealt with son DALE’s cocaine addiction [and] his dismay of the cartoon “Yogi Bear.” Additionally, it covers the “quick firing by GEORGE STEINBRENNER (by proxy) in 1985 after just 16 games which kept the prideful man away from Yankee Stadium for 14 years” (N.Y. DAILY NEWS, 5/6).
ALL IN THE FAMILY: In Newark, Jerry Izenberg noted the choice of LINDSAY BERRA, Yogi’s granddaughter who served as an Exec Producer on the documentary, as narrator for the film is “positively brilliant.” Izenberg: “To explain Yogi, you don’t need the timber of the voice of a basso profundo. This ain’t the Battle of the Bulge. It’s the Life and Times of Lawrence Berra. The honesty, the love and the bond between Yogi and Lindsay Berra comes through with every sentence” (Newark STAR-LEDGER, 5/9).
TAKING A DEFENSIVE TONE: ESQUIRE’s Alex Belth wrote the “polished, often pugnacious new documentary” is “animated by the conceit that Yogi the player has been neglected to the point of disrespect.” The filmmakers spend “so much time driving this point home that the movie, certainly intended as celebratory, often takes on a curiously combative, defensive tone.” However, observers can “make the case that Yogi enjoyed the most charmed baseball life of all time.” Belth: “His fame stretched beyond the game, beyond sports, and into the pop culture consciousness, lasting for generations after he stopped playing. How many players have a cartoon named after them? Berra’s fame didn’t diminish in retirement. It grew” (
ESQUIRE, 5/9).
