Watchable little sports film that encompasses many-a positive characteristic and comes as pretty essential viewing to anyone under the age of about eighteen.

Rating: 6/10 (15 September 2009)

You hold your breath going into The Greatest Game Ever Played, a Disney-produced piece that documents a lowly ranked American underdog going into a 'home' tournament against the best in the world, who are British, in order to defeat them at their own game. Biggest of biggest surprises then, when you realise it isn't really about that at all and instead we find it encompassing a number of very positive, very re-assuring traits linked to self-esteem; individualism and the class system, even if it borrows from out-and-out clichÃ© on other occasions. It's a pretty routine three out of five stars sports picture that handles everything it wants to in a commendable manner; but as a piece aimed at a specific, more younger audience, the film creeps up into the realm of three and a half to four out of five. This is for its energy, vibrancy and brass-tacks look at young people trying to figure out where they belong in the world; what they want to do and that no matter how famous or skilled you are or might see someone as, everybody can hurt.
The scene that documents this best is the instance in which golfer Harry Vardon (Stephen Dillane) is about to take a tee-shot during a tournament, but is suddenly and slightly overcome with fear born out of what happened to him as a boy, as four ominous top-hat clad men loom over him. He acknowledges it, swings and hits a decent shot. It is he whom we begin with in The Greatest Game Ever Played; as his cold, dark and drab Jersey-set place of dwelling is ruthlessly torn down by those wanting to expand, update and modernise his patch of land for sake of a links golf course. "What's golf?" asks a young Harry; he gets a reply from one of the aggressors that resembles something in the region of "a game people like you will never get to play". Golf is Harry's Achilles heel; his ultimate love/hate item. It is the reason he has the demons he does, but it is the reason everyone knows of him through his fame. The scene additionally introduces us to the study of class the film carries throughout; the notion that it doesn't matter who you are or where you're from; if you want to try something supposedly out of your league, then go for it.
Cut to the not so far future and we have the welcoming, colourful, activity-laden America, plus a credits sequence. But below the supposed glitz and appeal of the good old U.S. lies an equally troubled young man in the form of Francis Ouimet (Shia LaBeouf), a young adult living in rather a large family in conditions that, I suppose for the time, are just about good enough to see them get by. As the next in line to adopt that old fashioned, and somewhat annoying, 'man of the house' tag; it's thought the logical thing for Francis to do is get a traditional, steady job as his father did in order to earn the money for the keep. But Francis dares to dream, and in Francis many of the film's target audience will see themselves as this young individual on the verge of life. Francis embodies everything you'd want in a lead: he's young, energetic, handsome, ambitious, kind and has the aforementioned Harry Vardon as an idol. Francis opts to go against the status quo and, unsurprisingly, wants to take up golf.
Bill Paxton has done the unthinkable, but in an extremely positive sense. He's made a really accessible film using golf as the backdrop for the Disney crowd - a film that studies angst and the career-related decisions of young adulthood, whilst seamlessly incorporating the element of one's 'class'. The film's structure might remind you of 2006's Goal, a similar film in tone and study that came out around about the same time, about this young man daring to dream and having to go through his oppositional opinionated father in the process. Francis' father, Arthur (Elias Koteas), maintains his chief gripe, which is that golf's for 'gentlemen'; the sort that sneer and totally disregard those of the level Arthur sees himself and his family at. Francis ignores the advice, goes ahead and plays golf but his father's concern and disciplined advice turns into confusion and rage when he realises that as an amateur, Francis doesn't even get paid for it.
Like 2006's football orientated film Goal, the lead gets an early shot and doesn't quite swipe the opportunity; but he rises from where he subsequently finds himself. As events take their turn, Ouimet is allowed a wild-card entry, as an amateur, into the 1913 U.S. Open; one of only two golfing majors that existed at that time. He is accompanied by his idol Varden; as well as the equally skilled and equally real Ted Ray; a big, booming Englishman who we're introduced to as a boozing, brawling, tavern-frequenting man whom manages to retain his golfing skills despite all this. In there as well is the nationalistic and egotistical true-to-life American golfer John McDermott, who doesn't care who wins as long as an American beats these Brits here, in America, at their own game. McDermott represents everything I feared going into the film, his inclusion is one of a very knowing addition on Paxton's behalf; and his demise from the tournament teaches us of what qualities you need-not possess. In a contemporary climate full of celebrities and the obsessives that follow them, how nice to see a film that's about a young character drawn to someone of great stature by way of his hard work, but a role model whom they themselves carry particular demons. The film is a real winner: tense and entertaining whilst consistently engrossing.