what happened?

Rating: 2/10 (31 October 2000)

i am disappointed. to be honest i thought from the advertisments that this film would not be great but i figured if it was a robert redford film with will smith and matt damon it had to have something to it. but it didn't really.
the best things about this film were will smith and some of the camera work. matt damon wasn't bad. but the script was very unfortunate and i don't think the actors could have done much with it. will smith seemed to be given the amusing lines to say and his smiling face is full of light that brightens up the screen always.
so the script. yes it was very bad. no real character development, no thrill to the story, everything felt very rushed. it is hard for a film to live up to a book - the book this was based on was not fantastic, in fact it was kind of cheesy at points, but it was very lyrical and had moments of real beauty - these characteristics did not make it through to the film, though. the script for the film was quite different form the book and i think that was a huge downfall. the whole romance storyline was created for the film and it felt flat to me - no depth to it at all. the relationship between junah and bagger vance is also very different and suffers for it i think. there is little chance for a bond to develop between the two and bagger vance comes off as a wandering life-saver, instead of the mystical all-knowing god that he was in the book. the whole premise of the book - looking at golf as a analogy for the human condition - gets lost somewhere. the film is very thin, little substance if any, and while it doesn't look bad, it doesn't look great - the looks won't carry the film.
and the editing was quite bad. there was no flow to the film. it felt very choppy and there were often cuts or transitions at the wrong points so that it was unclear where the focus of the scene was. i was amazed that this film was released in such a choppy state. very sad.
this is redfords worst directorial work - and it pains me to say that because i admire the man and his work greatly. but there you go - no denying it.