The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000) [PG-13] ****

A film review by James Berardinelli for ReelViews.net.

With The Legend of Bagger Vance, director Robert Redford has attempted, with only limited success, to do for golf what movies like The Natural and Field of Dreams did for baseball. There are three elements at work in this film. The first is the use of the game as a metaphor for life. The second is a plunge deep into the lore of the sport, throwing away the unsavory modern trappings that have become associated with it and getting back to the purity of the game. Finally, there's the traditional sports movie storyline that culminates in a big game scenario pitting the underdog against a stronger, more experienced champion. Stirring these ingredients together as called for by the recipe should result in an engaging motion picture. Strangely, however, The Legend of Bagger Vance comes across as incomplete and uninvolving. In his zeal to get the period details right and craft a reverent, almost mystical atmosphere, Redford committed a key blunder: he lost sight of the characters' humanity. The men and women inhabiting this motion pictures are types, ciphers, and mouthpieces for slogans, not individuals we can believe in and care for.

With the exception of a framing story that transpires in modern day (and features an uncredited cameo by Jack Lemmon as the narrator), the majority of The Legend of Bagger Vance takes place in 1928 in Savannah, Georgia. Adele Invergordon (Charlize Theron), the inheritor of her late father's golf resort, has decided to erase her debts by staging a celebrity golf exhibition with a $10,000 prize. There are to be three participants: Bobby Jones (Joel Gretsch), Walter Hagen (Bruce McGill), and a local hero, Rannulph Junuh (Matt Damon), who was once considered to be one of the country's top prospects on the links. But that was before the war, from which he returned damaged and with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Now, Adele, who was once the love of his life, who still loves him and doesn’t understand why he has spent a decade lost and alone, must convince him to give up his drinking and start swinging the clubs again. It would be an impossible task if not for the aid of a local boy, Hardy Greaves (J. Michael Moncrief), who idolizes Junuh, and the mysterious Bagger Vance (Will Smith), who wanders into Junuh's life one night with a proposal to be his caddy for a guaranteed $5. In the process, he offers all the wisdom he possesses about golf and life.

Despite relying on several tried-and-true sports clichés, The Legend of Bagger Vance often comes across as pretentious. Redford hammers home the connection between golf and life with a host of half-baked lines that sound like bad dialogue from a self-help book: The rhythm of the game is like the rhythm of life, Inside each and every one of us is one true authentic swing, and The golf course lives and breathes just like us. The capper is that, like life, golf is a game that can't be won, only played. All of these lessons, and many more, come out of the mouth of Bagger Vance, who is like Obi-Wan Kenobi to Junuh's Luke Skywalker. He doles out sage advice, transforming his pupil from a burnt-out drunk into a self-assured man who can face the future.

Not one of these characters has an iota of personality that wasn't clearly manufactured on a screenwriter's word processor. Other than his slogans and sunny smile, there's nothing to Bagger. For all we know, he could be an angel on vacation. We learn plenty about Junuh, but too many of his characteristics are telegraphed, and his background is pieced together via a narrative voiceover accompanied by flashbacks. In the end, he seems more like a construct than a character, and it's difficult to muster much sympathy for him. Adele is a stereotypical tough Southern woman and is used primarily for comic relief and a little romantic tension. The only one who seems remotely real is Hardy, who at least behaves in a way that is consistent with someone his age.

In his best films (such as The Horse Whisperer and A River Runs Through It), Redford has the ability to draw an audience into the story, building invisible bonds between viewers and characters while filling the screen with sumptuous images. The Legend of Bagger Vance only gets half of the equation right. The movie consistently looks great - there are some twilight and sunset shots that are nothing short of stunning. But the character empathy simply isn't there. We don't care much about what happens to Junuh. His story may be interesting, but he isn't.

One of the questions many people have been asking is whether Will Smith, who is best known for action and comedy roles, can convincingly pull off a low-key, dramatic role (much as he did 7 years ago in Six Degrees of Separation). The Legend of Bagger Vance does not provide an answer, since Smith is given so little to do that almost any actor (excepting the likes of a Schwarzenegger or Stallone) could have convincingly pulled it off. Likewise, neither Matt Damon nor Charlize Theron has anything to be ashamed of, but Jeremy Leven's screenplay (based on the novel by Steven Pressfield) doesn't give them enough to work with. If there's an acting standout, it's the underrated character actor Bruce McGill, who puts gusto into his portrayal of real-life golfing legend Walter Hagen. McGill's performance brings life to a movie that is too often bogged down in its attempts to raise aspects of golf to an almost-religious level (choral music is even used at one point).

Impeccably crafted movies by respected directors and starring talented young actors don't always work, and The Legend of Bagger Vance is a case in point. For a film that runs a little over two hours, not a lot happens. One might logically anticipate that golfers will get more out of the film than those who shun the sport, but I don't think that's an accurate assumption. Redford has gone out of his way to make The Legend of Bagger Vance inclusive (that's the reason the game/life parallels are spelled out so blatantly). Despite its length, the movie isn't dull, but, once the end credits start rolling, it's unlikely to provoke a stronger reaction than a shrug. And, for a sports film that is striving for Olympian heights, such a lackluster response falls considerably short of what Redford was hoping to achieve. © 2000 James Berardinelli [Berardinelli’s rating: 2.5 stars out of 4 = 62.5%]

Labels: drama, fantasy, reunion, sport
IMDb 67/100 
MetaScore (critics=47, viewers=89) 
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=53, viewers=72) 
Blu-ray release date May 25, 2021.