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Bonds and BALCO are coming to the silver screen

First, Brian Dennehy brought Bobby Knight to glorious life in A Season on the Brink - and you thought you'd finally seen it all. Then came the Pete Rose saga in the form of Hustle, groundbreaking not only for its bad wigs, but for the gracefully and subtly poetic double-meaning of its title, which had never before been done in film.

And then along came 3: The Dale Earnhardt Story ("I just want to race, Daddy..."), and you said to yourself, "Surely, this cannot be outdone!"

Oh, but it can.

From the masterminds at ESPN Original Entertainment comes an epic of Ruthian proportions, a sordid tale of greed, intrigue, deception, scandal, the lust for power, and the sobering quest for fame and glory. Coming soon to a theatre near you: Juiced Up!: The BALCO Story.

It was only a matter of time before the steroid scandal was finally put on screen, and the collective genius behind The Junction Boys and Playmakers decided to strike while the iron was still hot. From the federal raids on Victor Conte's San Francisco-based laboratories to the grand jury testimony of such hotshots as Jason Giambi, Barry Bonds, Gary Sheffield and Marion Jones, Juiced Up! will bring to light all the harrowing details of the controversy that rocked the world of sports to its very foundation.

But who would take the director's chair and put this story on film? Well, given the conspiratorial tone of the plot, Oliver Stone was the natural choice. But after witnessing his last three dramatic efforts - U-Turn, Any Given Sunday, and Alexander - studio bosses didn't feel comfortable letting Stone direct the new SportsCenter commercial, let alone a full-length motion picture. After Scorsese and Spielberg passed, the job was predictably offered to Kevin Costner, who was denied the opportunity after he insisted that he cast himself as Barry Bonds. And so the search continued, until they finally found the man they were looking for - the prophet of on-field suspense himself, Tony Scott, the driving force behind Days of Thunder and The Fan.

"This promises to be the action-packed, suspense extravaganza of the summer," Scott said. "Not only will we set the record straight on this scandal, this film will also dabble in what it means to be human as we unflinchingly document the epic battle of man vs. himself, while expressing our disdain for the machinery of competition and capitalism in all its naked, brutal ambition. We'll show what happens when the vicious circle of one-upmanship gets stretched out!"

Mr. Scott - or, as he insists on being called on the set, "Coach Scott" - immediately got to work with his casting director, and he has compiled one of the most star-studded casts ever put together on one screen. After a rigorous casting process, the actors were chosen based on their looks, acting abilities and - most importantly - their mustaches. Without further ado, the stars of Juiced Up!:

At the center of our hard-boiled fable of moral ambiguity is Delroy Lindo as Barry Bonds, the embattled Giants slugger whose home-run records are called into question after his ever-expanding forehead grows to freakishly monstrous proportions, and people finally start asking questions. Rumors start flying about Bonds' secret dealings with personal trainer and childhood friend Greg Anderson, played by the similarly well-coiffed Christian Slater. Slater's portrayal of Anderson, Bonds' trusty sidekick, proves the perfect foil for Lindo's commanding central performance of the polarizing Bonds. To help illustrate Bonds' dramatic cranial transformation, Lindo has been fitted with a facial prosthetic similar to that worn by Ron Perlman in Hellboy.

Perhaps most important of all, though, is the man at the top of the MLB mountain, baseball commissioner Bud Selig. In one of the most vital roles of the film, Stephen Hawking stars as Commissioner Selig, the man whose carelessness and ineptitude help ruin baseball''s integrity forever. Due in large part to his uncanny resemblance to Mr. Selig, Hawking becomes the perfect literal embodiment of the ballyhoed commish.

Of course, just behind the scenes lurks the mad scientist himself, Victor Conte, played by John Waters in a small but crucial role, as his now-infamous BALCO labs lead to the pivotal grand-jury testimony of not only Bonds, but several of sport's biggest names.

After honing his athletic skills in Any Given Sunday and Rollerball, LL Cool J stars as Gary Sheffield, Bonds' former housemate and training partner who admits under oath to "accidentally" taking steroids. New York Yankee Jason Giambi is portrayed by Vincent D'Onofrio who, after we all witnessed his dramatic weight fluctuation in Full Metal Jacket, was a natural choice for the role. Joining them in what promises to be a classic courtroom sequence are Nia Long as implicated track star Marion Jones, Benicio Del Toro as Benito Santiago, and WWE superstar Kurt Angle as legendary pill-popper Bill Romanowski.

But even outside the BALCO investigation, steroid controversy remains. In a role that has Oscar nomination written all over it, The Rock stars as Jose Canseco, the 40/40 man and aspiring author whose forthcoming book promises to "blow the lid off" baseball's steroid problem. Tragedy strikes when former league MVP Ken Caminiti, played lovingly by Steven Seagal, dies suddenly, mere months after admitting to steroid use.

Of course, all the steroid talk leads people to question not only Bonds' records, but the entire home run boom of the 1990s. At the forefront of that boom are Mark McGwire - played by Danny Bonaduce - and Sammy Sosa, played by Seal.

Naturally, several of Barry Bonds' teammates and coaches get caught in the shrapnel and debris of the steroid controversy, leading to stirring performances by William H. Macy as Jeff Kent, James Earl Jones as Willie Mays, and Ossie Davis as Giants manager Felipe Alou. Don Cheadle also makes an appearance as Julio Franco, who summed up his own involvement in the steroid battle earlier this year with his remark: "I'm on the juice - the juice of Jesus of Nazareth." (No, he seriously said that.)

Meanwhile, Tom Sizemore reprises his role as Pete Rose, whose purpose in the film is basically to wonder why he's been suspended for life for gambling, while Bonds gets off scot-free.

According to "Coach Scott," Juiced Up! will not just be another sports movie, but will also serve as a vicious social commentary on race relations in sports and in the U.S. As Bonds' reputation gets dragged through the mud, we see the hypocrisy of our society in the form of white cyclist Lance Armstrong, played by Ewan McGregor. "It's a good thing I don't have any direct connections to notorious drug-peddlers," Armstrong says in one scene of the film. "And did you know that I survived brain, lung and testicular cancer, and then won the Tour de France six years in a row?"

While he has little to do with baseball's steroid problem, the cast wouldn't be complete without baseball's most powerful man, George Steinbrenner. The controversial Yankees owner is played by Anthony Hopkins, who was a perfect fit since he's essentially playing the same character he played in The Silence of the Lambs.

Since it's practically blasphemous to make a baseball movie without him, Kevin Costner will show up in a cameo appearance as uber-agent Scott Boras; the supporting cast also includes Clint Howard as MLB players' union chief Donald Fehr, Topher Grace as Theo Epstein, Luke Perry as Brady Anderson and Don Rickles as Don Zimmer.

And lest we forget the pivotal role of the media, the film's proverbial "Greek chorus," if you will. Tom Selleck gets to recreate his Mr. Baseball glory days as he stars as FOX analyst Kevin Kennedy, alongside Elisabeth Shue as Jeanne Zalasko. Over on ESPN, the film stars Keanu Reeves as Karl Ravech, William Devane as Tim Kurkjian, Ron Jeremy as Jayson Stark, Chris Rock as Harold Reynolds, and Chris Berman as himself.

And since no movie is complete without him, the inimitable Christopher Walken stars as Peter Gammons, everyone's favorite baseball analyst.

And there you have it - Juiced Up!: The BALCO Story promises to go down as Tony Scott's masterwork, and as one of the great sports stories ever told. Oliver Stone, eat your heart out.

Copyright © 2005 by Chris Bellamy

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