‘Break Point’ serves up tennis along with a family dynamic needing mending

Tennis movies, anyone?

There have been tennis sequences in such eclectic films as Woody Allen’s 2005 drama “Match Point” and Alfred Hitchcock’s intense 1951 thriller “Strangers on a Train.” But in general, tennis-centered movies such as 2004’s “Wimbledon” have netted poor results with critics and audiences.

Because the genre has been so ill-served, actor Jeremy Sisto, known for “Six Feet Under” and “The Returned,” and his friend Gene Hong, a writer-producer whose credits include “Bones,” saw “space in the movie index” for a tennis dramedy, Sisto said.

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The two came up with the idea for “Break Point,” which opens in theaters Friday — quite appropriately, in the midst of the U.S. Open — and is already available on video on demand.

“I think for me and for Gene,” Sisto said, “the fact that there hasn’t been a successful tennis movie like this made it really appealing.”

But not so appealing to Hollywood.

When Sisto, who also produced “Break Point,” and Hong sent out the writer’s script, they were met with hesitation from financiers and other industry people.

“It made it pretty difficult to set up,” Sisto said.

Though it has a lot of tennis action, the movie is more about two estranged brothers still mourning the death of their mother.

“The family dynamic worked for both me and Gene because we liked the idea of people who were incomplete,” Sisto said. “A great way to start a movie is to have a group of characters wherein something is missing — that is, the loss of their mother — and at the end they have figured out a way to mend that broken circle.”

Sisto plays Jimmy Price, a 35-year-old man-child who, as a professional doubles tennis player, has the attitude of vintage John McEnroe. He plays hard on and off the court, and his boorish manner has alienated him from almost everybody on the circuit. After he’s dumped by his latest partner, Jimmy decides to make one more run for the top, so he approaches his former partner: estranged brother Darren (David Walton), now working as a substitute teacher.

Oscar winner J.K. Simmons plays their dad, Amy Smart costars as the woman Darren adores, and Joshua Rush plays the precocious Barry, one of Darren’s grade school students who hangs out with the brothers.

Hong’s script, director Jay Karas said, intrigued him with its family conflict.

“Jimmy and Darren realize that to be in sync on the court, they need to be in sync as brothers and as human beings,” Karas said. Once young Barry gets more involved with the brothers, “you realize it is about these three men-children forming this new dysfunctional family unit.”

Walton, who starred in the NBC series “About a Boy,” began playing tennis when he was 3. He jumped at the chance to play Darren.

“Being in a sports movie is so in my bucket list,” he said. “I didn’t realize that you could combine two loves into one thing.”

He said most tennis movies fail because the actors don’t know how to swing a racket.

“We may have benefited from our small budget,” Walton said, adding that the actors did actually play. “We were not going to have stunt tennis players. But ultimately, I think people are watching the movie for what is happening off the court.”

Sisto trained so he could elevate his game, but he said he never matched Walton’s ability.

“David has been playing since he was kid and it’s so frustrating,” Sisto said. “He just very easily beat me.”

As for shooting the tennis sequences, Karas designed “visual art” for the way he wanted to shoot the matches, he said. “I drew them out like football plays.”

susan.king@latimes.com