Think 'Field of Dreams' meets 'The Natural' with a golf club...

Rating: Null/10 (5 November 2000)

I loved this one. You go into it thinking, it's gonna be hokey, sappy, boring, trite, etc-and no, it isn't that. Instead, Redford works his 'Natural' Magic here in a way that is believable, sentimental in the best meaning of the word, and very, very moving by the end. It's a flick about someone losing and finding their Self again, bringing their gifts that they thought they'd lost forever in their Youth, and magically retrieving them in a golf game to end all golf games.
Semi spoiler or two below!!
Matt Damon basically comes off as being a big goofy kid at times, he is So babyfaced that you think of him as being maybe a couple years outta college at best, not some 30 year old scarred-up WWI vet. But he pulls off the role just the same, you can kinda buy him as Payne Stewart, a little.
The guys playing Hagen and Jones were right on the money, Hagen essentially a Babe Ruth of golfing type, all cynicsm and smoke, complete with turbaned Gunga-Din style Caddy and gaggle of groupies, while Jones is shown as the typical athletic golden Boy, all class and business. I think they were well-written roles indeed.
Charlize Theron is beautiful, of course, the camera simply loves every minute of her onscreen-she seems to me to combine the right elements of Kathleen Turner, Michelle Pfieffer and Goldie Hawn. I thought her performance was quite effective, and its too bad she is semi-written outta the flick once the game gets underway-standing on the sidelines and reacting to the matters at hand much the same way Liv Tyler does in Armageddon.
Bagger Vance, of course, is essentially a guardian angel, of the links, very well done by Will Smith. He underplays it just the right way, I enjoyed seeing him onscreen and hope he can do more roles like this. It's a tough role to play nowadays-basically he's a soothsayer and advisor, but because its a black guy being a Caddy, you know the PC-hordes in the media are gonna be screaming 'Stepin Fetchit!' from the word go, though the character is anything But. Nice bringing things full circle at the very end, too.
I found everyone in the audience enjoying this thing all the way through, it is funny, touching, exciting, beautifully filmed. If it has any real weaknesses, you won't read about them here-cause I didn't see any.
***1/2 outta ****, hole in one of course.