Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius - *
Now Playing: (2004, Rowdy Herrington) [seen in theatre]
Cinematically speaking, golf is a strange sport to portray onscreen. On one hand, it's a game that's less about competition between people than between man and nature, with the cinematographer-friendly splendor of the outdoors also serving to trip up the players whenever they begin to think they've got everything under control, to say nothing of the fact that one has greater flexibility in casting due to the lack of need for muscled athleticism in golf. On the other hand, golf at the professional level is more a game of workmanlike consistency than flash, which tends to make most matches fairly unexciting to watch. The best movie about golf on a professional level, TIN CUP, works because it's about this idea, with Roy's bad-boy attitude in contrast to the play-it-safe style of the more successful players, but BOBBY JONES isn't nearly smart or ambitious enough to offer many ideas of its own. The result is a by-the-numbers portrait of the golf legend from his childhood through his years competing, culminating in his as-yet-unprecedented Grand Slam in 1930, but the film gives us very little feel for what drove this man. Jim Caviezel plays Jones, and while Caviezel is a good actor he's much too subdued for great-man biopics like this one, as his Jones is largely colorless and bland. The filmmakers clearly idolize Jones for the "purity" of his love for golf, his refusal to turn pro serving as a symbol of his greatness, and on-the-nose lines like "money's gonna ruin sports" demonstrating all we have "lost" since Jones' time, but as tends to be the case with nostalgia for the past, this feels like an easy way out. Most of the blame for this film can be placed on director Herrington, who by attempting to cram so much of Jones' life into the film speeds through the story and turns it into a highlight reel, with most tournaments boiled down to a single shot of Jones either sinking or missing a putt, depending on whether he won (BAGGER VANCE, though not a good movie, made the right storytelling decision by focusing on one tournament). Ultimately, this isn't a hateful film by any means, just a limp one, although fans of James Horner's BRAVEHEART score might want to buy a ticket, since Horner re-creates large chunks of it for this film.