[INFINITESIMAL REVIEW] The Greatest Game Ever Played
Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 6:19 pm
I went on MRQE after watching this and was surprised to see so many positive reviews for this by-the-numbers, painfully trite and shallow telling of Francis Ouimet's U.S. Open victory in 1913, arguably one of the biggest upsets in sports history.
It could have made for stirring historical storytelling, but Bill Paxton makes sure every frame and every uttered line meets with Disney's standards of ensuring that nothing goes over the head of a six year old. Why a six year old would want to watch a movie about golf, particularly golf which took place over 85 years ago, I dunno.
To give you an idea, as a child (in the movie), Ouimet meets Harry Vardon -- the Tiger Woods of his era -- at an exhibition. Vardon invites Ouimet (a kid he's never met) to swing a club. Ouimet shanks it into the audience. Vardon slowly bends down and in an earthy voice full of gravitas intones, "only despair keeps a man from his destiny" or something equally ridiculous.
I felt dumber and dumber as the movie went on, as the whole movie is written like this, with each character spontaneously offering "sage" advice and moral sermonizing with every line.
As if this wasn't bad enough, they altered history to make the final match come down to the final putt, when in real life, the match had already been long decided before they ever got near the 18th green. The movie starts "This Is A True Story". As Tommy Lee Jones' character in No Country For Old Men wittily retorts when the veracity of his tale-telling is questioned, "Well, it's true that it's a story."
In summation, let's check the ol' tally on the Number Of Decent Golf Movies In Existence scoreboard:
0.
ONE AND A HALF STAR (*1/2)
It could have made for stirring historical storytelling, but Bill Paxton makes sure every frame and every uttered line meets with Disney's standards of ensuring that nothing goes over the head of a six year old. Why a six year old would want to watch a movie about golf, particularly golf which took place over 85 years ago, I dunno.
To give you an idea, as a child (in the movie), Ouimet meets Harry Vardon -- the Tiger Woods of his era -- at an exhibition. Vardon invites Ouimet (a kid he's never met) to swing a club. Ouimet shanks it into the audience. Vardon slowly bends down and in an earthy voice full of gravitas intones, "only despair keeps a man from his destiny" or something equally ridiculous.
I felt dumber and dumber as the movie went on, as the whole movie is written like this, with each character spontaneously offering "sage" advice and moral sermonizing with every line.
As if this wasn't bad enough, they altered history to make the final match come down to the final putt, when in real life, the match had already been long decided before they ever got near the 18th green. The movie starts "This Is A True Story". As Tommy Lee Jones' character in No Country For Old Men wittily retorts when the veracity of his tale-telling is questioned, "Well, it's true that it's a story."
In summation, let's check the ol' tally on the Number Of Decent Golf Movies In Existence scoreboard:
0.
ONE AND A HALF STAR (*1/2)