Night Game (movie)
| Night Game | |
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| Directed by | Peter Masterson |
| Produced by | George Litto |
| Written by | Anthony Palmer |
| Starring |
Roy Scheider Lane Smith Karen Young Richard Bradford |
| Music by | Pino Donaggio |
| Cinematography | Fred Murphy |
| Edited by | Robert Barrere King Wilder |
| Distributed by | Trans World Entertainment |
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Release date
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Running time
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95 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Night Game is a 1989 crime drama filmed in Galveston and Houston, Texas. It stars Roy Scheider as a detective who must solve a series of murders. Released on September 15, 1989 by Epic Productions, the film was written by Spencer Eastman and directed by Peter Masterson.
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 her throat slashed by some sort of knife or hook.
Scheider plays former minor league baseball player turned Galveston homicide detective Mike Seaver. Seaver is a staunch Astros fan and is the only person on the case who begins to realize the coincidence of the deaths coming after Sil Barretto's night game wins in the Dome.
After 95 minutes of sleuthing, Seaver ultimately realizes that the murderer is a disgruntled former Astros pitcher named Floyd Epps. Epps had lost his pitching hand in a minor league bus accident and now wears a hook. He personally, if illogically, blames Sil Baretto for his misfortune and decides that his murders on the same night as Baretto's wins will steal the headlines from his former teammate.
The penultimate scene features Seaver shooting and killing Epps at a Galveston beach front restaurant. Epps has been attempting to murder Seaver's fiancee, Roxy, but the swings of his hook prove to be as wild as his mental state, and he fails. The final scene of the film features Sil Barretto walking off the mound before the start of a game in the Astrodome to lead the entire stadium in a standing ovation for the newly married Seaver and Roxy who are standing behind the dugout.
Upon its release, Night Game was neither a critical nor a box office success. The New York Times review of the movie on September 16, 1989 read, "Maybe Roy Scheider should go back to chasing sharks. His career has taken a long, slow dive from his days as the harassed police chief in Jaws and the tortured Broadway director in All That Jazz. In fact, it seems to have hit bottom in Night Game." The review further stated, "It's hard to see what could have been done to liven up Night Game, short of having someone run into the Galveston Police Department yelling 'Shark!' Too bad no one does."
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