At times stunning, but it could use some editing

Rating: Null/10 (21 January 2001)

This is a movie with a great story: an unknown aged ballplayer appears who has magical talent. This concept leads to a couple of wonderful scenes. Most of all, the scene featuring Roy Hobbs first at bat as a Knight is spectacular. I would be willing to say that every shot of this scene is perfect. The growing storm that accompanies him, the foreshadowing, the music, the magic... it is the stuff of legend, again, fabulously done. Unfortunately this movie is too long and boring. I very much enjoy a slow developing story, if every scene in this movie featured an amazing home run by Roy Hobbs, the power would be lost, thus its necessary to keep things slow. However it is not necessary to tie in ridiculous side-stories, such as an evil owner trying to take an idiot manager's shares of the ball-club. Yeah!! Roy Hobbs fights corruption to save the dunce manager!!! How idiotic, how about just plain Roy Hobbs plays baseball because he loves baseball; that's what the movie's trying to say, why try to add more suspense? Cutting this kind of uselessness would really help this movie on a couple levels. I'm very tolerant of slow movies and I love baseball, but this movie is boring. Robert Redford is ok, some may disagree, but I think he comes off as too much of a prick in this movie, especially since it seems clear that from the script Roy Hobbs is a very good guy, yet somewhat mysterious. I think Redford turns mysterious into prick. The manager is annoying, Kim Bassinger is not that great, Glenn Close is good but not at all attractive, Michael Madsen was great and Robert Duvall is very good as well. ***