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#212 - The Natural
Barry Levinson, 1984
A talented young baseball player is seriously wounded and doesn't get to play professionally until he is much older, yet he still has enough ability to win games and earn people's attention.
Despite my unfavourable impression of Bull Durham, I decided to follow it up with the other baseball movie on my DVR. The Natural covers similar ground in that it's about a baseball player who never got to reach the big-time. Here, the player (Robert Redford) is not beset by a relative lack of talent, but instead by tragic circumstance as he is unexpectedly shot and wounded, torpedoing his promising career for over a decade. When he finally ends up playing baseball again after sixteen years, it's for a losing team stacked with old, unknown players. It's due to Redford's incredible batting talent that the team starts to win games, which draws the attention of an incredibly corrupt judge (Robert Prosky) who wants Redford to start throwing matches for his own gain.
The Natural is a movie I have rather mixed opinions about. The underdog narrative makes enough sense given the plight of Redford's character and the team he joins, but the plot doesn't get any variations that totally justify the film being 140 minutes. There are a couple of romantic complications such as Redford being torn between his childhood sweetheart (Glenn Close) and an upscale city woman (Kim Basinger), though they are carried more by the performances than the writing. The same could be said of the rest of the cast, with strong actors like Robert Duvall and Richard Farnsworth elevating the somewhat average material. Though it plods along for the most part, it does generate some serious tension during its third act. The period setting is adequately captured through decent costume design and heavily filtered cinematography, but not enough so to compensate for a rather dry script.
Barry Levinson, 1984
A talented young baseball player is seriously wounded and doesn't get to play professionally until he is much older, yet he still has enough ability to win games and earn people's attention.
Despite my unfavourable impression of Bull Durham, I decided to follow it up with the other baseball movie on my DVR. The Natural covers similar ground in that it's about a baseball player who never got to reach the big-time. Here, the player (Robert Redford) is not beset by a relative lack of talent, but instead by tragic circumstance as he is unexpectedly shot and wounded, torpedoing his promising career for over a decade. When he finally ends up playing baseball again after sixteen years, it's for a losing team stacked with old, unknown players. It's due to Redford's incredible batting talent that the team starts to win games, which draws the attention of an incredibly corrupt judge (Robert Prosky) who wants Redford to start throwing matches for his own gain.
The Natural is a movie I have rather mixed opinions about. The underdog narrative makes enough sense given the plight of Redford's character and the team he joins, but the plot doesn't get any variations that totally justify the film being 140 minutes. There are a couple of romantic complications such as Redford being torn between his childhood sweetheart (Glenn Close) and an upscale city woman (Kim Basinger), though they are carried more by the performances than the writing. The same could be said of the rest of the cast, with strong actors like Robert Duvall and Richard Farnsworth elevating the somewhat average material. Though it plods along for the most part, it does generate some serious tension during its third act. The period setting is adequately captured through decent costume design and heavily filtered cinematography, but not enough so to compensate for a rather dry script.