The best baseball movie I have ever seen since The Pride of the Yankees

Rating: 10/10 (21 May 2015)

Barry Levinson's The Natural is by far one of the best baseball movies of all time (second to Pride of the Yankees (1942)) not only because the story is so extraordinary but it also feels like you are an actual character which is in fact how great this movie really is. The movie stars Robert Redford as Roy Hobbs a man who loved baseball all his life and played when he was a kid until high-school and tries to play for the Chicago Cubs at the age of 22 but before that he meets a journalist named Max Mercy (played by Robert Duvall) and a man who is called "The Whammer" (played by Joe Don Baker) and practices pitching with them. After he is done with pitching he meets a woman named Harriet Bird (played by Barbara Hershey) who at first seem like friends but after a few days she almost kills Hobbs in her apartment with one gunshot but luckily Hobbs survives and has to wait until he is 38 years old and doesn't get signed on to the Chicago Cubs but instead gets signed on to the New York Knights where he meets two managers one who's name is Pop Fisher (played by Wilford Brimley) who isn't sure at first that Hobbs would do well at his age, and another man named Red Blow (played by Richard Farnsworth) who believes that Hobbs would succeed. The screenplay to this movie is just awe-inspiring, because not only does it tell a story of a great player it also tells an evil back-story because Hobbs is being betrayed and he knows it by three people, the Judge (played by Robert Prosky), Gus Sands (played by Darren McGavin), and a girl that Hobbs was flirting with for a short time named Memo (played by Kim Basinger).The actual best supporting performance in the film didn't only come from Brimley and Farnsworth but the most inspired performance came from Glenn Close as Iris Gaines who was Roy's true love and made Roy a true natural at baseball.Though I didn't read the novel I felt as if I did while watching the movie, which I felt like I was an actual audience member at one of Hobbs' baseball games which to me pretty much explains why i think that all movie lovers should see this wonderful movie that will stay with you for a long time.