Life, sex, and baseball. Baseball, life, and sex.

Rating: 10/10 (26 March 2008)

What is Bull Durham about? On the surface, it's about baseball: the love, joy, pain, and madness of baseball. But it's really about life. The baseball team are the Durham Bulls (a variation on the title), a minor league North Carolina team who aren't very good.
The 3 central characters of the film are Crash Davis, Annie Savoy, and Ebbie Calvin 'Nuke' LaLoosh, played respectively by Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon, and Tim Robbins in a triumvirate of truly focused, convincing, memorable performances. All 3 actors imbibe their characters with humanity and unique qualities. They all pair off at different times in the film and have a variety of memorable interactions and discussions.
*ANNIE AND NUKE Annie chooses every season to 'pair up' with one of the players and it comes down to Crash (the catcher) and Nuke (the pitcher). Annie 'chooses' Nuke, but mainly because Crash 'rejects' her. Annie and Nuke share a set of hilarious scenes together. Annie (much older than Nuke) uses him to satisfy her sexual desires and need to stay and feel young and vibrant. Also, she is helping him with his pitching. But there is also a maternal instinct that kicks in. It's obvious that Sarandon (Annie) and Robbins (Nuke) off-screen relationship contributed to their on-screen chemistry.
*NUKE AND CRASH Crash is literally traded to the Bulls (engineered by the team manager) so that he can mentor Nuke's pitching, thus preparing him for the major leagues. Crash is a veteran with a lot of experience and advice that Nuke can use, but Nuke doesn't always listen, so Crash has to constantly teach him lessons and reminds him who's boss. Crash and Nuke have a big brother-little brother relationship with Crash doling out advice, but also there is 'sibling' rivalry because of Annie. Crash sees the greatness in Nuke's pitching and is living his dream through Nuke. If Nuke makes it to the majors, he'll know that he made it too. Their last scene together is the most touching moment in the film. Costner and Robbins convey a real, funny, male bonding relationship that is a special part of the film.
*CRASH AND ANNIE And, now, to the creme de la creme! The piesta de resistance! The pairing to end all pairings! Crash and Annie! It's always hard to see what is really going on when you first see a film, but when I saw this film 20 years ago, I really kind of knew how it was going to end (with Crash and Annie), but didn't really appreciate at the time how it got there. After watching the film again over the years, I really see the true magic of the Crash/Annie relationship. It's got to be the most fun I've ever had waiting for 2 characters to get together in a film. It's obvious from the beginning, even when she's playing her baseball groupie games, that Annie wants Crash from the start. You can see it in the way she looks at him when she first sees him. It's love at first sight. Of course we find out how she feels later in the film, but it's obvious she wanted him from the start. You can feel the sexual tension and desire in all of Crash and Annie's scenes together, even when they are playing word games and seemingly don't want each other. When they finally do get together, it is one of the rawest, hottest, sexiest series of scenes ever put to the screen, so be warned! Costner and Sarandon (as Crash and Annie) can lay claim to having provided the viewer with the sexiest scenes recorded in film history. The look that they give each other when both finally realize that they have each other is almost as hot as the series of scenes succeeding this. The way that Crash looks at Annie is the way a woman wants a man to look at her when he wants her and the way Annie looks at Crash is the way a man wants a woman to look at him when she wants him (even though the average guy supposedly doesn't really care). But, for Annie, Crash isn't the average guy, not just some seasonal fling who she can forget about later. Crash for her is THE ONE, a man who shares all her interests (reading, philosophy, old music and of course, baseball). And for Crash, Annie is the person he's been waiting for all his life who saves him at just the right time when he's approaching middle age and realizing that he's at a crossroads in his life. She gives him something to live for and continue on. Their final scenes together are truly special. The irony is that, if they had gotten together from the beginning, I don't think they would have ended up together because they needed to learn about and really size up each other to make sure that they were meant to be.
Of course, the brilliance of the film is not only these 3 characters, but also the way that it chooses not to glamorize or glorify baseball, but rather let baseball play second fiddle to the real story of the film: life itself. There's a lot of great dialogue and funny scenes with other characters as well. The scene with all the baseball players and coach on the mound talking about 'wedding gifts' is classic! Wonder if this happens in the majors! But a lot of the baseball moments still feel and seem realistic (Crash mentally 'talking' to himself while trying to get a hit off a pesky pitcher, Nuke literally talking to himself while trying not to think so much while pitching, Crash using his veteran savvy as a catcher to throw off batters to get them to strike out).
So what is Bull Durham? Well, in order, it's...
1)...a love story 2)...about relationships 3)...about mid-life crises 4)...about life itself 5)...about baseball