"A reel of good film, ruined."

Rating: Null/10 (22 November 2000)

Hollywood will tell you it is looking for new, different stories. Actually, what Hollywood looks for is the same old story with a slightly new twist.
Robert Redford has got the message. We have in the past seen films about almost every conceivable sport, from pool hustling to bob sledding. They almost always have the same plot. The long shot guy or team wins. Whether its about baseball, football or ice hockey, whether its about an individual or a team, its always about a loser or losers who find redemption.
So, having exhausted the major American sports, and in Redford's case this includes fly fishing, we turn to that most thrilling of spectacles, golf.
The plot is this. It's the 30s, former golf phenom Matt Damon, who somehow got messed up in World War I, agrees to play in a three way golf shoot out with the two greatest players of the era, Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen. Will the gambling, boozy (well, not too boozy) Damon get his swing back? Only, it seems, with the help of his own person guru, played by Will Smith. Smith appears out of the night in a spiritual sort of way and before long is spouting new age advice of the type that made Luke Skywalker invincible with a light sword.
There's no point of going any farther with the plot, because if you can't figure it out from there, you've never seen a Hollywood sports movie. This is essentially a festival of cliches which centers on believing in yourself.

The camera work is great, the sets beautiful and the sunsets just knock outs. The acting is passable and Damon and the girl he is trying to win back, Charlize Theron, soldier on bravely with their parts. Smith gives what at best could be called a relaxed performance. What he seems to be doing is impersonating one of those guys sitting around on the sports journalist roundtable shows, pondering the more philosophical aspects of one sport or another, but really just waiting for the camera light to go off so he can pick up his paycheck and go home. You'll want to go home, too, about halfway through the film.
Actually, the filmgoer would be better advised to go outside and get some exercise rather than seeing this through to the end.