CHARLIE HUSTLE & THE MATTER OF PETE ROSE
(director/writer: Mark Monroe; cinematographers: Gregory Kerrick, Jake Swantko; editor: James Leche; cast: Pete Rose, Marty Brennaman, Al Michaels, Lesley Visser, Tommy Gioiosa, Chad Lowe, A. Bartlett Giamatti; Runtime: 55, chapter 4; MPAA Rating: NR; HBO; 2024)
“I walked away from the film not feeling sympathetic to Rose, as I doubt if this film will change anyone’s mind about him one way or the other from the way they felt before seeing the film.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Mark Monroe (“Morning Light”/”UFO”) directs this informative four-part television series on the now 83-year-old baseball hit king, Pete Rose (with Rose and Ty Cobb being the only MLB batters with over 4000 career hits, and Rose topping him with 4,256 hits). The film follows his daunting baseball career that began in 1963 when he played for the Cincinnati Reds. He retired as player-manager for the Reds in 1986 and managed them only until 1989. In 1989 he was banned by the new baseball commissioner, A. Bartlett Giamatti, for life from baseball for gambling on the games and is banned from being in the HOF.
Despite the Dowd Report, requested by MLB, providing ample proof of his guilt, Pete continued to lie until 2004 and say he never bet on baseball–a violation of the baseball rules that he knew would get him banished from the game. It’s a rule put in place because of the 1919 Black Sox Scandal of players taking bribes from bookies to throw games.
In 1990, Pete was convicted on filing false tax statements and served a 5-month sentence in a minimum security prison.
The scrappy player known as Charlie Hustle helped secure WS victories for both the Big Red Machine (they won the World Series twice in the 1970s) and the Philadelphia Phillies, they won the World Series in 1980). He had a short stint playing for the Montreal Expos, where he did not flourish.
Pete tells his side of the story and how he got involved with crooked gamblers and guys he would run with who were not choir boys, and we see how the once popular player lost much of his luster because of making so many bad decisions. He still refuses to completely own what he did, mostly blaming others for his downfall off the field. I walked away from the film not feeling sympathetic to him, as I doubt if this film will change anyone’s mind about him one way or the other from the way they felt before seeing the film. Monroe follows him in 2022 when he seeks to be reinstated in baseball, and we follow him through the use of archival footage since 1960 when he arrived on the baseball scene on a Class AA team to the present.
REVIEWED ON 8/4/2024 GRADE: B-
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