Jun. 07, 2003 - 7:06 pm
this was another film that was featured for a few seconds on Dr. Larsen's sound editing tape that he has on reserve at the media center. i only have one more of those to see and then i'll have seen everything featured on that tape. the only other background i have to mention in relation to me and this film is that i think i had seen the final scene of the film where the amazing homerun happens at least a few times in the past. and i know that i know the hook of the main Randy Newman song that recurrs throughout the film.
this is a fictional account of a baseball star called Roy Hobbs who is sort of an up-and-coming rookie in the 1920s. as soon as he heads out on the road with a team, he gets tangled up with a beautiful woman who quite unexpectedly shoots him in the stomach and then kills herself. after that, it takes him 16 years to get his life back into order to where he feels like playing again. at that point he's sort of a geezer in the baseball world and no one has any faith in him. but his amazing talents quickly shine through and he leads a losing team into the limelight.
i enjoyed the movie, and i think the story is quite well written. it takes many pieces of classical legends and real baseball stories and pieces them all together into one fantastic screenplay. it's always surprising and hardly ever dull. i rather wish that the Glenn Close character had had a larger part in the film though. she did a great job in all of her scenes and had sort of a quiet mystery to her. the rest of the cast was sort of iffy though. i've never been a huge Kim Basinger fan. i think she just seems not real to me in some way and she's therefore always out of place. as far as characters go, i didn't really understand the need for the Robert Duvall character. i thought he was more in the way than anything else, although i don't mean to downplay Robert Duvall's abilities as an actor. i just though his character itself was lacking.
so there's definitely some memorable scenes in this and quite a bit of magic in the story, but it's just a decent film. nothing lifechanging or anything.