Sploosh

Rating: 3/10 (28 December 2006)

Manages to be overblown and pedestrian at the same time. Laden with so many clichés that neither a story line nor character development ever get out of the rough. Less about golf than about fevered camera shenanigans. A formulaic plunk into the water. How the hero gets the girl is never explained nor explored, it is simply there as an obligatory plot element. Likewise the relationship with the father (and mother)--never explored in any meaningful way. The one tiny interaction between father and mother is goofy and like so much in the film, pretends to explore but substitutes glibness for dialog. Ditto the Harry Vardon character--glimpses of a conflict that is never more than a vague attempt at exploring class distinctions, so crudely handled that it's like a caricature of a caricature.