You Gotta Believe

The film does enough to get you through to the end of the film but lacks the feel-good moments as well as the impactful dialogue that could have made this film an instant classic. Despite this, the story is very inspiring and that should be enough to make you want to give the film a watch.

Ty Roberts’ inspirational sports drama You Gotta Believe relies on age-old playbooks to a fault. It’s a true story and a surefire tear-jerker, but Lane Garrison’s screenplay is reductively hokey at the worst times.

You Gotta Believe is an entry in the “heartwarming true story” genre, Little League subdivision, and it isn’t bad so much as resolutely average.

You Gotta Believe is billed as family entertainment. Whose family, exactly, they never specify.

Parents with young children who hope this is a sweet and inspiring film about an underdog Little League team will find that there is too little baseball and too much about a family confronting a devastating loss. Those who are more interested in the story of the adults will find there is too much baseball. Steee-rike.

The baseball is sloppy and the sentiments border on maudlin in You Gotta Believe, the latest “true story” Texas sports dramedy from director Ty Roberts and writer Lane Garrison.

The surface-level script and refusal to commit to any character's development make the story and characters shadows of what they could have been.