One of the ironies of the music for Trouble With the Curve is the plethora of comparisons between the film itself and the topic of Moneyball from the previous year. Interestingly, while Moneyball will be considered by most to be a vastly superior baseball and family film, both productions suffer from rather bland and uninspiring music. Beltrami's tone in Trouble With the Curve is a bit friendlier than Mychael Danna's had been for the earlier venture, but a lack of dramatic resolve and impactful gravity connects the two works. Beltrami does provide, at the very least, a better narrative flow and some parochial spirit by opening and closing the score with a few cues of meandering electric guitars meant to address the American South. Unlike similar usage in Danny Elfman's Real Steel, however, the guitars here don't seem to contribute to an overall thematic arc with which to tie the story together. In fact, Trouble With the Curve is melodically anonymous for most of its length, a curious choice given the positive effect the score's eventual theme (of simple, rising phrases) starting in "The Real Deal." Beltrami explores a few motifs in the first two thirds of the score, but none of these ideas blossoms into a meaningful identity. That leaves the fluffiness of the instrumentation to carry the personality of the score, and here Trouble With the Curve is also hit and miss. At times, as in "Bo's Homer" and "Another Hit," there are hints of the enthusiasm that graced Soul Surfer. The plucked strings, piano, and acoustic guitar in "Flanagan" and (with more fluid strings) "Mickey's Home Run" offer moments of liveliness not heard again in the score. Instead, you encounter extended sequences of nearly inaudible filler material for strings or piano, not much unlike, intriguingly, a Clint Eastwood-composed score. Cues like "Post Clogging," "Horse With No Name," and "Get On the Bus, Gus" practically kill the listening experience, and the redemption you hear from the orchestral ensemble in "Trouble With the Curve" and "Not All I've Got," while basically effective at their task, cannot entirely salvage the listening experience. The unrelated song "On My Way" at the end of the otherwise score-only product contains infinitely more life than anything in Beltrami's contribution. There is an argument to made for a two-star rating for Trouble With the Curve, not just because of the (unrealistic) expectations following Soul Surfer but also due to a total lack of genuine warmth and enthusiasm in 90% of this score. Still, Beltrami competently follows all the basic genre rules and provides the bare minimum necessary for the music to function.  ***   @Amazon.com: CD or Download