With films like Two Family House and City Island, director Raymond De Felitta found easy charm where many other indie filmmakers try too hard: in working-class New York neighborhoods whose Italian-American residents harbor dreams they rarely attempt to make real. He weds his sensibility to a conventional sports-comeback story in Bottom of the 9th, in which a Bronx man (Joe Manganiello) fresh out of prison gets a taste of the baseball career he almost had.

Though Robert Bruzio's script holds far fewer surprises than the aforementioned De Felitta-penned ones, the director's sense of place counts for a lot here, and a sympathetic lead performance will have most who catch the film rooting for this underdog.