If golf is a good walk spoiled, this movie was $14 and two hours wasted. The script leaves too many unanswered questions for those who know nothing about Robert Tyre Jones, Jr., which hurts understanding the storyline. Rather, it assumes we all are familiar with the history of golf and how it relates to Jones and his accomplishments. Why were early professional golfers like Walter Hagen considered second-class to amateurs in the era? What were the four major championships in Jones' time, and why? Did Jones only play major championships? While the talent difference between professionals and amateurs is clear today, the semantics of the word "amateur" today connote a lesser-skilled person than a pro, and the movie does nothing more than confuse people on that important element. The movie was financed by and produced by the Jones Film Foundation LLC (it was). So what you really get here is the story of Bobby Jones the way the Jones family wants it told. Which explain the total lack of balance. Director Rowdy Herrington, who co-wrote the screenplay with two others, produced a script that is as sophomoric and lame and laborious as it is predictable, even for those who don't know the history of the man who was arguably the greatest golfer of all time. The movie is a nice period piece, despite a few historical inaccuracies and mistakes like the store-window reflections of modern SUVs in a scene where the future Mrs. Jones rides a trolley around 1920. The steam passenger trains purported to be transporting Jones around the Deep South have British-style locomotives and passenger coaches. The golf courses supposed to be Oakmont and Merion are of the wrong architectural style. The greens are cut much shorter and roll quicker than the technology of the day allowed as they didn't "stripe" tees and fairways in those days. And so on. The golf scenes are too few and too stiff and too disjointed, to the point where we don't see any meaningful, tide-turning, dramatic shots save for the winning putts haphazardly spliced in. Just a bunch of miracle shots in between a soap opera-like storyline. Some of Bobby Jones' (Jim Caviezal) tee shots look like the ball flight was added with a computer. The dialog and character development are both poor and amateurish, with contrived pathos and stock drama. The movie's conversations were cornier than the outfield in Field of Dreams. There were far too many instances of ad-lib clairvoyance and/or disbelief. For example, before Jones attempts a flop shot that needed to clear the high top of a tree to reach the green, we get a closeup of a spectator whispering, "He'll never make that shot." And of course, he does. Maybe that's how they tried to convey that it was a difficult shot to the non-golfers in the audience, but those who play or watch the game are offended with that kind of obvious simplicity. There's another scene, set in a clubhouse bar, where Jones is goaded by a burly professional who can't believe he wants to stay an amateur playing solely for the competition and not the money. After a disgusted Jones finally walks away, upset with the overacted tirade, omnipresent biographer O.B. Keeler (Malcolm McDowell) whirls and punches the obnoxious guy in the mug, then turns and offers the clairvoyant opinion: "Someday, money will ruin sports." The script comes off more like a patchwork quilt of unsubtle, insipid scenes that don't really mesh well or add up to a whole. It's as if they made a list of significant incidents in the life of Bobby Jones and then rushed to find a way to string them together. I'd be surprised to hear that the screenplay writers spent more than a weekend working on it. If it took any longer, they should be ashamed. If you like contrived, you'll love the scene where young Bobby pulls off yet another miracle shot and a shocked spectator punches his hand through the lid of his straw skimmer. The action is so forced, so movie-formula, it is funny, but for all the wrong reasons. And the arduous, recurring, cliché-ridden theme of stern, practical, preachy grandfather disapproving of Bobby's "silly" pursuit of playing golf instead of aspiring to a more productive pastime against his son's (Bobby's father) wishes is finally resolved in group hug at the end that was so expected, so trite, so cornball, it caused me to laugh uncontrollably at what other theatergoers deemed a very inappropriate time. Sorry, I couldn't help myself. Caviezal, who like most of the other actors, gives a cardboard performance, looks pained and anguished throughout the movie and blandly recites the faulty dialog. He doesn't look a bit physically like Bobby Jones. Nor does he swing like a golfer. Jeremy Northam, as Walter Hagen, is actually believable, although I thought Bruce McGill (The Legend of Bagger Vance, which was as awful as Caddyshack II) looked like and played the Hague much better. Oh yeah, the writers took some liberties with the facts like the scene where Hagen chides Jones in the locker room prior to the 1930 British Open. Too bad Hagen didn't even make the cross-Atlantic trip in 1930. There's too much foul language and club-throwing after bad shots, and the cloying scene where a reformed Jones calls a penalty on himself despite claims from witnesses that his ball did not move at address is so goody-goody, it's sickening. It's hard for the audience to become compassionate with the stiffly-played Jones character here although he is accurately portrayed as a member of "privileged" society, where whites play the game of golf and are waited on at every turn by blacks. The ignored wife, the supportive-yet-concerned parents, the sermonizing grandfather, a serious "attack" of varicose veins... aaargh! It's a shame. This movie had so much potential, but bogged down by a silly script, it never got off the first tee.
Review of Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius
