Mark Twain's Line About Golf Works Here

Rating: 2/10 (7 January 2009)

Jon Peters - the executive producer of Caddyshack - said that "golfers love this movie." I can't argue that point for a moment. My father-in-law is a golfer and he loves this movie, and loaned us the DVD to watch it. Unfortunately, I am not a golfer. I lean to the Mark Twain school of thought on the game - "golf is a nice walk ruined." Needless to say, I did not love this movie.
The best thing I can say about it is that Rodney Dangerfield is only part of an ensemble cast rather than the actual star. That meant that his typical crude, buffoonish character didn't have as much time to grate on me as in some of the movies he's actually starred in (think "My 5 Wives.") In the time he was on screen he still grated as real estate developer Al Czervik. Three primary subplots very loosely held together what there was of a story here - groundskeeper Carl's (Bill Murray) attempts to dispose of a pesky gopher who's tearing up the greens (the fake gopher also grated on me); caddy Danny's (Michael O'Keefe) attempts to suck up to Judge Smails (Ted Knight) in order to gain a scholarship to university (maybe he should have worked harder in high school?) and the bet between Czervik and Smails. Chevy Chase was also included here as a sort of new age golf ace. The cast didn't blow me away. Dangerfield I've commented on. Murray's work was probably the best in an undemanding role and Chase wasn't bad. O'Keefe was OK. Knight seemed to keep falling into his Ted Baxter persona from the Mary Tyler Moore show. Thinking back to Mark Twain - this movie was a potentially nice 99 minutes ruined! And to think this spawned a sequel! Obviously there are a lot of golfers getting too much sun! 2/10