Fans of novelist Don DeLillo know the man has big things on his mind. So it should come as no surprise that his screenwriting debut tackles such disparate elements as self-doubt, the creative process, family dysfunction, and sports fandom. All of this is embodied in a playwright (Michael Keaton) who's toeing the line between success and failure -- a rabid Boston Red Sox fan who's a native New Yorker, no less. Game 6 is sometimes haphazard and unfocused, but it benefits greatly from Keaton's best performance in a decade. His Nicky Rogan is drawn to the perennially failing baseball team because he's addicted to the failures of his own life, which carry the same preordained quality as the team's epic collapse in the 1986 World Series. For those who were oversaturated by Red Sox appearances in pop culture following their 2004 World Series triumph, Game 6 isn't really a "Red Sox movie," as it were. Game details are obsessed over and baseball philosophies floated, but they carry more of a symbolic value. The film is more about a self-destructive mind and the unusual places it goes, during a defining day in which Rogan runs into numerous emotionally charged acquaintances and agonizes over his World Series conflict with the opening night of his play. Michael Hoffman, who has typically helmed mainstream fare with clean production values, gives the film a scruffy look that easily transports the viewer to the windy, trash-strewn streets of New York in October of 1986. The outer look of the film is a reflection of Rogan's inner mind, and Keaton gives us an interesting mind to contemplate indeed.