Reviews

This movie had ambition. It was meant to be the film that would stand once and for all as the definer and glorifier of generation-x. It tried very very very hard to be clever and ironic and witty and hip. It is on my personal list of my top ten most hated movies of all time (not the worst movies, just the ones I could stand the least).

I will admit that I am not at all a fan of either Winona Ryder or Ethan Hawke. In fact, since I saw this movie six years ago, I have refused to see any movie starring either actor. In 'Reality Bites,' they portray the type of hip misunderstood geniuses that we all wish we could be; they have vast education and intelligence but no marketable job skills, they spend their time ridiculing yuppies and pitying themselves, and they are really good looking. Also, at one point Ethan gives an excruciatingly bad performance of a terrible song that he presumably wrote himself.

Joining the impossibly hip duo are Steve Zahn and Janeane Garofalo as their quirky college friends, and Ben Stiller (who also directed this farce) as one of the aforementioned yuppies.

Now, I happen to like Janeane Garofalo, Steve Zahn, and Ben Stiller, but it took me several years to be able to appreciate them again after seeing this movie.

***Spoiler Alert*** After an hour and a half of irony, self-pity, and bed-hopping, Winona and Ethan finally realise that they really love each other, and all is well. Usually this type of love-conquers-all ending ruins the film for me, but in this case the proceedings could not have gotten any worse anyway, **End spoiler alert***

I hated this movie simply because of its smugness. It even takes great pains to define for us the word 'irony', and how ironic it is that such ironic people are unaware of its definition. Also, I have very strong suspicions that Ethan Hawke became so immersed in his Reality Bites character that he stayed in character for another seven years (until Training Day - which I didn't see and never will, but at least he cut his hair and shaved his goatee). It is possible that my immediate, visceral aversion to this movie resulted from a complete inability to empathise with such obnoxious and self-satisfied, yet still whiny, characters as we see here. They have no redeeming qualities as people, and they mistake their idle mockery of everything about them for some kind of genuine hipness. This is not a mistake that the viewer should be making.

If you are a person who thinks that there is nobility in being hopelessly untalented and unemployed, then you may like this movie. Everyone else, stay away.

This movie is about a mystical black man named Bagger Vance who shows up one day to teach Matt Damon (wounded slightly in WWI) how to be good at golf again. We all learn a valuable lesson about golf as a metaphor for life. The End.

Really the only good thing I have to say about this movie is that it is beautifully shot. Some of the sunset shots simply must be required in any prestigious film studies class. There are a few other camera tricks Redford uses to fully showcase the splendor of the Georgia sea coast, and they make you wish you were really there.

However, everything else about this movie was garbage. I mean, it is simply a 'Field of Dreams' type mystical film set to golf instead of baseball, but whereas baseball does indeed have a legitimate legendary and mythical status in the American mind, golf is just a rich white man's game played in one's ugliest clothes. Golf will never have the stature and love that baseball does, even if more people play golf nowadays. It is a good game (I am not here merely to bash golf) but it is still a game and not a sport.

**Possible Spoilers Ahead** This movie is very implausible (if you can extract yourself from the ultra-manipulative filming style) and would be a good fantasy tale if it were not loosely based upon well-known history. This film takes place sometime in the 1920's, if I am not mistaken, a time when absolutely no black people (i.e. Vance) would have been tolerated on a golf course in Massachusetts, much less a southern state like Georgia. Of course, he doesn't actually play golf in this film, but appears to know more about it than anyone else. Maybe his wisdom came from observing people he wasn't allowed to associate with playing a game he wasn't allowed to play, through binoculars since he wasn't allowed anywhere near the place. Now, Bagger Vance was portrayed as a bit of a simpleton, but why would he go to the trouble of learning so much about a game when all he could possibly do with his knowledge is to have the honor of serving as a white man's caddy? Lofty goals, my friends, lofty goals. There are a few other cliched plot devices (the little white kid who looks up to Matt Damon, the hot-and-bothered southern belle love interest). Putting the southern belle aside (I know that big budget movies need love interests as part of some commandment of movie-making) what is with that kid? How many ten year old boys do you know who are absolutely nuts about golf and who weren't born into wealth and privilege? When I was ten, I was into baseball and hockey and football, and so was everyone I knew. Golf was something our fathers played, and they weren't even that crazy about the game.

Bad performances all around (except from Bruce McGill, who can always be counted upon to ham it up with the best): Matt Damon plays himself yet again, Charlize Theron is just here for scenery, the kid is chirpy and annoying, and Will Smith plays one of the more offensive black stereotypes in recent film history (he usually plays the wisecracking black stereotype, but here it is much more Uncle Remus offensive, I was wondering why more black people didn't slam this film but then I'd be really surpised if a single black person even saw it in the first place). Really, all Vance does is grin sheepishly and dispense little pearls of wisdom that will make Damon not only a better golfer but a better human being ("Yassuh!! No Suh!!! You mus' be da ball, massuh Damon!!!).

Sadly, Robert Redford did indeed attempt to do for golf what Field of Dreams did for baseball, and failed miserably on every count. Great scenery, though.

Possible spoilers ahead:

This is a very funny movie. I am not much of a fan of either Adam Sandler or Jack Nicholson, as they are both very one-dimensional actors, but they really work well together on this one. If you like either actor you will probably enjoy this film, even though the acting talents of Sandler and Nicholson are not stretched in any way (Sandler plays a guy who is constantly trod upon by life and the people around him, and Nicholson is seemingly psychotic). This is an extremely funny movie, with Nicholson garnering at least as many laughs as Sandler, if not more. The supporting cast are also very good. John Turturro, Luis Guzman, and Woody Harrelson are good in virtually everything they do, and this is no exception. Also, Marisa Tomei is easily the most adorable actress in the business, and can make a bad movie watchable by her presence alone.

Here come the spoilers:

Now, despite the incredible cast and the sheer volume of humorous episodes, this is by no means a good movie. In fact, the ending was sickeningly cliched and nearly spoiled the entire movie for me. I do not know how I was expecting the story to end, but the ending that was chosen by the scriptwriters was probably the least creative and most sentimental ending possible. The fact that anyone would go to this much effort just to cure someone of his anger issues goes beyond any pretense of plausibility. I also do not know how all of this extensive and extravagant therapy was to be paid for, as Tomei played a waitress or something and Sandler's character was a secretary.

End of spoilers.

But, plot problems aside, this movie is very well worth seeing at least once. It is probably the funniest movie I have seen in a long time, and it is a good way to spend two hours of your life.