Interesting and strangely fascinating old-fashioned sports melodrama

Rating: 8/10 (25 February 2001)

Robert Redford has clearly not forgotten the time in the 1970s when he and Paul Newman were two of Hollywood's leading men. As soon as you see the posters for his sixth outing as a director  this time golfing story/parable The Legend of Bagger Vance  you are immediately reminded of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting. Because in Matt Damon and Will Smith he has got two of the most illustrious members of the new generation of American screen heartthrobs, reminiscent of his own legendary partnership with Paul Newman. But the undoubtedly talented Damon and Smith are not just pin-ups: they really manage to carry the film for all of its 128 interesting, and strangely fascinating, minutes.
I say `strangely' because a simple film like this shouldn't really be able to satisfy regular cinema audiences, what with the plot being no different from virtually any other golfing, or indeed sporting, movie. But Redford actually manages to pull off what every basically similar film in the sporting genre tries to do in one form or another: sport as a metaphor for life. Now this may sound pretty pretentious, but in his hands it isn't, because not only is the storyline a success; the historical context is right (Savannah in the Great Depression), and even the more philosophical utterances play their part in creating a very enjoyable and quite profound package.
The unfortunately named Rannulph Junuh (Matt Damon) is a world-weary Great War veteran who, after his harrowing experiences in the trenches, is encouraged by golf-course owner and fiancée Adele (Charlize Theron) to recover his `long-lost swing'. But only thanks to the help of his mysterious and spiritual caddie Bagger Vance, the catalyst of the story, does Will Hunting, sorry  Rannulph Junuh, get his `authentic swing' back to triumph in Adele's three-man exhibition tournament.
Although Damon dominates the screen throughout, it is Will Smith's character who gets all the best and most important lines, and he delivers them with obvious enthusiasm, though always keeping out of the limelight and maintaining a certain physical distance. Bagger Vance's religious overtones might irritate a few people, but in fact the film can be taken as a straightforward, old-fashioned sports melodrama, with a nice little love story thrown in for good measure. The ups and downs of the main character's sporting life are narrated, as all historical dramas seem to be, with the help of a flashback structure and voice-overs. The colours  sepia-tint brownish tones dominate  suggest not only a very nostalgic, respectful look at the Deep South in the 1930s, but also a tribute to the film-making techniques of the time. It seems as though only modern Hollywood conventions kept Redford from filming the whole thing in black and white. But then again, some of the sweeping camera movements (or are they just computer-generated images? The end credits certainly suggest so .) are breathtaking; ditto the settings.
Although the film often lays it on a bit thick in the sentimentality department (the inevitable slow-motion scenes at the final hole, complete with mawkish, swelling violins), Redford's calm, almost poetic images and his ability to tell a simple story with style have the power to surprise even some of the more cynical moviegoers among us.