Overpraised Groupie Baseball Film

Rating: Null/10 (14 October 2006)

There has been so much positive comment on this film, that it may be time to take a fresh look at it-----and truth be told, "Bull Durham" has a hard time standing up to close scrutiny.
One of its principal story lines involves the premise that the Susan Sarandon character (Annie) spends a season every year initiating a selected rookie on the minor league Durham Bulls to the joys of sexual awakening. She is a forty-something baseball groupie who holds some ill-defined academic job nearby, but seems to have all the time in the world to carry on her quest. Her target this season is the Tim Robbins character (Nuke)----who is obviously younger, talented, immature, undisciplined, and overly afflicted by raging hormones.
Annie makes a ritual of these initiations----giving them both physical and cultural aspects. She also seems totally one dimensional in her lack of any romantic feelings for the initiatee, and it is difficult to understand exactly how she expects her annual exercise to make a better person of either the ballplayer or herself. Nuke's journey with Annie may be analogized to the one taken by a new law clerk with a judge----only Nuke's clerkship seems to exist only as a between the sheets experience.
Kevin Costner (Crash) plays the world-weary veteran catcher who is supposed to tame the raw talent that Nuke apparently possesses, while at the same time deal with Annie's intrusion into this process and Crash's own growing feelings for Annie. If he were alive at the time and able to project the right persona, the ideal casting for Crash would have been George Sanders-----because nobody played such burnout roles better than he did.
The film is interesting in giving us a slice of life in a minor league team and town, but none of it rings particularly true and much of it feels contrived.
While involving a totally different story (the world of pop music v. minor league baseball), a much better "groupie" film is Cameron Crowe's "Almost Famous"(2000). It is a far more authentic viewing experience.
Ms. Sarandon never looked lovelier than she does in this film. Perhaps it came from the glow of playing with (filmwise and otherwise) Tim Robbins for the first time. As we all know, this movie marked the beginning of their beautiful relationship. As for Robbins and his attempt to portray a gangly ballplayer, a much better effort came from Gary Cooper in "Pride of the Yankees" (1942). But of course that was made at a time when a baseball story had to stand on its own two feet-----and any screenplay weaknesses couldn't be covered up by lots of sexual situations---and I do mean lots!