If you love baseball sentiment, pure storybook nostalgia, you'll love it. Otherwise...

Rating: 5/10 (21 May 2015)

The Natural (1984)
What an outsized reputation this sentimental, sloppy movie has! Even the famous scene with Glenn Close standing up in the stands in the sun is smaller than you'd expect. In fact, if you take this movie as a straight ahead story of a glorious (if fictional) baseball past, it's simplistic and overly sentimental to the point of unwatchable.
But it's not straight ahead. It's a fable. It does silly things knowing that they would work in an illustrated children's book, so why not make it a sepia-toned over-the-top feel-good Hollywood bash? Indeed.
So when Robert Redford (who does not, by the way, have the biceps for power hitting) smashes a pitch so hard he rips the skin off the ball, it's not for real. Or it's better than real. And so forth with lightning arriving in time for his last big hit, or having his rival crash through a wall and die (yes die!) just when he needs a chance to take position in right field.
Treating this as a fable about a man with talent and a dream, and with some kind of sloppy honor to his past (you'll see), makes it very watchable. It's doesn't quite make it "good" however, so be prepared to like the film only on its own simple terms. It's fun if you don't think too hard.
This movie has great credentials, including Barry Levinson directing and Robert Duvall in a secondary role. Honestly, it's just not my kind of film—check out "The Pride of the Yankees" for a really good baseball film—but I can see how it would settle nicely on a lot of folks, including young people with dreams of being the best.