''Off the Black'' is a 2006 American drama film starring

Nick Nolte Nicholas King Nolte (born February 8, 1941) is an American actor. He won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for the 1991 film ''The Prince of Tides''. He received ...

and Trevor Morgan. It was written and directed by

James Ponsoldt James Adam Ponsoldt (born 1978) is an American film director, actor and screenwriter. He directed the drama films ''Off the Black'' (2006) and '' Smashed'' (2012), the romantic comedy-drama '' The Spectacular Now'' (2013), and the dramas '' The En ...

, who also has a small role in the film, and is his feature directorial debut.

Plot

Ray Cook (

Nolte Nolte is a surname that may refer to: * Bill Nolte (born 1953), U.S. singer and stage actor *Carl Nolte (born ?), U.S. journalist * Charles Nolte (1923–2010), U.S. actor and educator *Claudia Nolte (born 1966), German politician * Dorothy Nolte ( ...

) is a bitter, disconcerted high school baseball umpire and chronic alcoholic who, after a series of unusual events, crosses paths with Dave Tibbel ( Morgan), a high school baseball player seeking revenge after Cook's questionable calls cost his team the most crucial game of the season. Over time, an unlikely bond forms between the mismatched pair, and Dave agrees to pose as Ray's son for the old man's forty-year high school reunion. The film is a story of two wandering lost souls, one an adolescent boy struggling (along with his younger sister, played by Sonia Feigelson) with an absent mother and a father (Timothy Hutton) who has entirely checked out, and the other an older man, who has seen the curve balls life can throw at you and continuously struck out in his struggle to be the man he wishes to be.

Cast

Reception

''Off the black'' received positive reviews and has a rating of 66% on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

based on 44 reviews with an average rating of 6.2 out of 10. The critical consensus states "Nick Nolte shines in his role as an irascible high school umpire, imbuing this indie coming-of-age dramedy with heft and true-to-life warmth."

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

gave the film a score of 62 out of 100, based on 20 reviews. The film only had a limited release in America and made $24,425.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Off The Black 2006 drama films American drama films 2006 directorial debut films 2006 films Films directed by James Ponsoldt 2000s English-language films 2000s American films