Smartorhypo
Highly Overrated But Still Good
Acensbart
Excellent but underrated film
Curapedi
I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.
kenapl2
A Great Love Story, A team Overcoming insurmountable odds.. Facing potential death for playing in the game, but doing it for the team, Pops, his first love, and his son. Just the history of the bat is almost enough, but sprinkled with these other elements: if you can watch 2:10-2:15 and not get chills......It all comes together in One Swing. The team, his legacy, his son, his first love.
David fells Goliath.Amazing music (Grammy Award winner 1985), cinematography, acting, and story. Great actors. Great Story. Could watch every week. Just like Hoosiers - Jimmy Chitwood winning shot. Enjoy.
Matt Greene
I don't fault this movie for its cheesiness, as it wears it so confidently on its pinstripe sleeves. I don't fault this movie for Redford, even though he seems bored out of his mind. I fault this movie because...what is it? What's the point? Roy Hobbs has earned nothing. Literally every single thing that happens to him, whether positive or negative, seems completely magical. So when the movie ends, we've just watched a dude have things complacently happen to him for over 2 hours. Why? WHY?!
Prismark10
After winning a best director Oscar in 1981, Robert Redford kind of semi retired from the movies. Setting up The Sundance Institute and raising funding for his personal directing projects left him with little appetite for acting work.The Natural an almost Arthurian story based on Bernard Malamud's book was Redford's return to acting in four years. Segt in the 1920s Redford plays Roy Hobbs a naturally gifted baseball player who fashioned his bat from a tree that was struck by lightning on the night his father died. The bat is his Excalibur.On his way to Chicago for tryouts he is gunned down by a black widow like maniac who is killing the best in every sport. Sixteen years later Hobbs emerges as rookie for the New York Knights a team that is going nowhere and who shady owner wants the team to fail.Once Hobbs get the chance to play he becomes a natural hitter leading his team on a winning streak but his success brings hazards and again there is another woman out to derail him, bring him down and therefore the team.The Natural is a period drama beautifully photographed by Caleb Deschanel. It moves at a languid place accompanied by a memorable score from Randy Newman. The music and some of the baseball imagery has been much imitated since.It is a lyrical film about second chances, love and redemption. It is also about good and evil. The women represented by Barbara Hershey and Kim Basinger are evil city women wanting Hobbs downfall. Glenn Close who plays his old flame back at the farm is draped in white and is almost angelic giving Hobbs a lift whenever she turn up at the stadium.The film bristles with a great supporting cast. Joe Don Baker as The Whammer who is humiliated by the younger Hobbs. Robert Duvall who has never played ball but is on the lookout for a great story and believes he can make or break a player to protect the sport such is his cynicism. Darren McGavin is a shadowy gambler who is in league with Robert Prosky's Judge who wants the team to fail so he can get sole ownership from the coach played Wilfred Brimley. These are arrogant and corrupted men.Brimley and Richard Farnsworth are the pure heart of the sport, uncorrupted men who love the game.I first watched this film over 30 years ago and found it enchanting, a thoughtful film for all the family.This was director's Barry Levinson's introduction to the major league. A chance to work with a big star and bigger budget. I think Levinson feels a bit lost away from his personal Baltimore set films and this could be the reason why some find the film cheesy and the portrayal of the women in this film shallow.I think the decision to shoot Redford and Close as teenagers in dim light is a risky move that they just about kind of get away with. However when we see the older Hobbs we see Redford in his element. Like Hobbs in the intervening sixteen years, Redford keeps him mysterious, somehow distant which is typical of the actor who eschewed the method acting of displaying histrionics on screen. You leave that to others and just bounce of them.
secondtake
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.
