I have never been a sports fan. I have only begun to follow New York sports teams in the past 2 years, so I went into The Last Play at Shea not knowing much about the history of Shea Stadium. Luckily, directors Paul Crowder and Jon Small did a great job laying out Shea Field's place in history and its importance to so many people from the average Mets fans to Sir Paul McCartney, and along the way, I got a look into how Shea Stadium affected the careers of Billy Joel, Sting, and the Beatles.
The Last Play at Shea starts way back when Shea Stadium was first built. Narration by Alec Baldwin explains why Shea Stadium and other developments were meant to bring the upper class of Manhattan out to the suburbs of Queens and why they failed to do so. Instead, working class families moved out to Queens. Shea Stadium became a stadium only a Mets fan could love, and not even the Mets' mothers thought they could actually win a game. Together, the Mets and Shea Stadium were the perfect underdog story. How could this loser team possibly win anything, and who would ever want to play a game, much less a concert, in this dump?
At the same time, Billy Joel was a young kid growing up in Queens and dreaming of stardom. When he saw the Beatles on TV and at Shea Stadium, he decided that he wanted to be a rock star too, and he started a band. Many years and numerous hits later, Billy Joel is asked to play the closing concert at Shea Stadium, the place where the Beatles played their first stadium concert and where Sting played his last concert with The Police before they called it quits. The Last Play at Shea shows how Joel went from the kid from Queens to a rock star commanding a crowd in the last concert at Shea.
The only complaint I think some people will have about The Last Play at Shea is that it covers so much about sports, music, and the fall and rebirth of New York City, and it is hard to sum up succinctly what The Last Play at Shea is about. On the one hand, the film is a documentary of the life and career of Billy Joel, and it is fairly successful at that, even if they do gloss over his divorces and alcohol abuse for the sake of time. On the other hand, the film tells the story of the Mets, a team that experienced many failures and miracles in Shea Stadium, and they make a case for why fans have been so loyal through the years. Finally, the film shows all the lives that have been affected by Shea Stadium. The film's inside look at the life of groundskeeper Pete Flynn was quite extraordinary. This ordinary man has helped host everyone from rock stars to the Pope, and he famously drove the Beatles off the field after their famed concert. I had never heard of Pete Flynn before, and I am glad that the filmmakers took the time to recognize his place in Shea Stadium's history.
The Last Play at Shea is a film that tries to do a lot with its short 96 minute run-time, and overall, it succeeds. The various narratives and storylines weave together almost seamlessly with everything coming back to the unexpected magic in Shea Stadium. I think that most audiences will find something to like in The Last Play at Shea. Music fans will love the final concert shown in the documentary as well as the music history at the stadium. Sports fans will enjoy the recap of some of the best moments at Shea including the black cat who ran the length of the dugout and the Mets' win over the Braves after the September 11 attacks. Even Yankees fans will not be able to deny the tugging at their hearts when Pete Flynn, the man who drove the Beatles off the field at Shea Stadium, gets the chance to drive Sir Paul McCartney onto the field for one last performance.
SPECIAL FEATURES
Special features consist of two deleted interviews including Billy Joel's talking about the front row ticket and Santa and Chuck Klosterman discussing music criticism. This was pretty disappointing considering they could have included full music numbers from the concert in the film. You get a line-up with Billy Joel, Tony Bennett, Garth Brooks, John Mayer, Steven Tyler, and Sir Paul McCartney to name a few, and you would think they would include some of the full performances from the concert.
"The Last Play at Shea" is on sale February 8, 2011 and is not rated. Biopic, Concert-Film, Documentary, Sports. Directed by Jon Small, Paul Crowder. Written by Mark Monroe. Starring Alec Baldwin, Billy Joel, Dan Barry, Paul McCartney, Tony Bennett.
