A Snooze Runs Through It

If you love watching golf, you'll love Robert Redford's new movie

Comments (0) By Gregory Weinkauf Thursday, Nov 9 2000

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David James

Will Smith and Matt Damon: Wipe those looks off your faces -- it's only a game!

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Screenplay by Jeremy Leven based on the novel by Steven Pressfield

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Smiling knowingly from beneath his shabby hat (which looks as if it has seen more than a few free bowls of soup), Smith is ideal in the well-worn role, but -- to borrow songstress Loreena McKennitt's term for her sublime backing ensemble -- he's also an idling Porsche, squelched into mannered behavior that can scarcely contain his ample reservoirs of charm and wit. (Note to producers: Let Smith direct Redford next time.) He's the best of the bunch here, but the movie's detached rosiness adds a cumbersome handicap, as with Theron, whose every scene looks like springtime in a pantyliner commercial, and Damon, who simply is another diluted entry in a growing line of stand-ins (Hutton, Pitt, Fiennes) for the director himself.

Like most of his films after the poignant Ordinary People and jovial Milagro Beanfield War -- especially the interminable Horse Whisperer -- Bagger Vance is a story of healing that shies away from its own soulful potential, cowering behind lush cinematography and immaculate production design. In essence it's another pretty and polite story of a wrecked course having its divots systematically replaced.