Up To Par.

Rating: 7/10 (9 April 2015)

This tale hangs on a well-worn peg. An African-American (Smith) acts as coach and mentor to a talented young white man (Damon) who must overcome inner demons.
The game is golf. But Smith, who wanders into Damon's yard out of the night, is something more than a supportive friend. His lines turn him into a Zen master. "Every man has that perfect swing inside him." "You lost your swing but you don't find it -- it finds you." "Close your eyes and feel the field." "Golf is a game that can't be won, only played." That last one is a doozie because life has that same quality of course. The last we see of Smith is his silhouette, wandering off, hands in pockets, into a florid sunset. He came like water and like the wind he went.
But Smith has some of the better lines too. In an important match, the Savanna Open or the Atlanta Closed or something, Damon winds up in the sand trap, the ball half buried. He turns to Smith, who is watching dispassionately. "What do I do now?" Smith: "About what?" The director, Robert Redford, has turned golf into a religious experience. Mystical music play while Damon contemplates the field. It's like watching Ben Hur play golf. And when the little white ball sails through the air, we hear a heavenly chorus.
Golf, despite its sanctity and the imprimatur of St. Andrew himself, has always struck me as absurd. Grown men taking a stick and trying to knock a little ball into a hole in the earth. Take away the sticks, shrink the field, and you'd have a great game of marbles.
Redford doesn't spell out all the technical details although they sometimes crop up willy nilly in the dialog. I never had the slightest idea of what a sand trap had a "lip" or what an "iron" was. Now I have the slightest idea. You can pick up the argot from the context.
The photography of South Carolina is exquisitely done and the period details are amusing to see. The performances are all professional too. I particularly liked Charlize Theron as one of Damon's demons, the other being his shattering experiences in World War I. Certainly, Theron is beautiful but Hollywood is filled with beautiful women. Theron has rather more than these accidental attributes going for her. For one thing, she is a polished ballerina and can still bust a couple of tough moves. For another, she speaks Afrikaans. Her rosy aereolae may be a bit circumscribed in their extent but she can be forgiven for that. It's curious that her theme line with Damon should be "I like the way you dance." In many ways -- in many fundamental ways -- it's a dumb movie, but it's done so well that I hung with it, tensely, until the inevitable outcome of the only golf match the movie shows us.