Classic baseball movie

Rating: 7/10 (25 September 2017)

Even if you haven't seen it all the way through, or if you saw it so long ago you don't remember it in its entirety, there are parts of The Natural that you'll never forget. In the beginning, when young Robert Redford carves a baseball bat from the lightening-charred wood of a tree, the "Wonderboy" bat will become engrained in your memory. And I don't know of any moviegoer who doesn't immediately recognize the slow-motion home run with fireworks and Randy Newman's beautiful score in the background.
Those two scenes aside, The Natural is a classic baseball movie. Robert Redford rises and falls—and perhaps rises again—as a baseball player in the 1920s and 1930s. Which means this is a perfect "compromise" movie, as I call it. Men will be satisfied because it's a sports movie, and ladies will get to drool over Robert Redford in period piece outfits.
Three women, Barbara Hershey, Glenn Close, and Kim Basinger, are important and different influences in his life. Joining the cast are Robert Duvall as the nosy reporter—are there really any other kind of reporter?—and Wilford Brimley as the team manager. If you haven't seen this 80s classic by now, rent it during the last week of March to get revved up for baseball season. The music is surprisingly beautiful; you'd never guess the same composer wrote the music to Toy Story. And even though he's always handsome in his movies, Robert Redford is particularly gorgeous in this one, so even if you don't like baseball, there's plenty else to fall in love with.