Review of The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000) by Frances H — 27 Mar 2013

Promising golfer Rannulph Junuh (Matt Damon) is Savannah, Georgia's favorite son, and Adele Invergordon (Charlize Theron) is his beautiful girlfriend from a rich family. While serving as a captain in the US Army during World War I Junuh is traumatized when his entire company is wiped out in battle. Though he earns the Medal of Honor, he returns to Georgia and lives a shadowy life as a drunk, golf being just a distant memory. Years later Adele is trying to recover her family's lost fortune by holding a four-round, two-day exhibition match between Bobby Jones (Joel Gretsch) and Walter Hagen (Bruce McGill), the best golfers of the era, with a grand prize of $10,000. She's holding it at a golf resort her father built as the Depression struck. However, she needs a local participant to generate local interest, so she asks her estranged love Junuh to play. Junuh is approached by a mysterious traveler carrying a suitcase who appears while Junuh is trying to hit golf balls into the dark void of night. The man identifies himself as Bagger Vance (Will Smith) and says he will be Junuh's caddy. He then helps Junuh to come to grips with his personal demons and helps him to play golf again. When the match starts, Jones and Hagen each play well in their distinctive ways, but Junuh plays poorly and is far behind after the first round. With Bagger caddying for him and giving advice, Junuh rediscovers his "authentic swing" in the second round and makes up some ground. In the third round, closes the gap even more. Junuh and Adele also find their romance rekindling. Late in the final round, Junuh disregards Bagger's advice at a crucial point and after that plays poorly. He hits a ball into a forest, where he has a traumatic World War I flashback, but Bagger's words help him to focus on golf. Junuh pulls back to a tie with Jones and Hagen, then has a chance to win on the final hole, but calls a penalty on himself when his ball moves after he tries to remove an obstacle. Seeing from this that Junuh has grown and matured, Bagger decides his golfer doesn't need him any more. Bagger leaves him as mysteriously as he met him, with the 18th hole unfinished. Now it´s up to Junuh to finish the game and find himself on the golf course...

All respect to Robert Redford, both as an actor and director, but "The Legend Of Bagger Vance" doesn´t hold up in any areas if you ask me. The biggest problem is the non existing feeling of authencity. I don´t believe in the characters and their existence, nor the storyline. The acting is stripped from any emotions and no one gets away with their southern dialect. I don´t doubt that the original novel carries an ok story, but the way Redford and the screenwriters has handled the original story we get something of a snooze. The movie got criticised for the Bagger Vance role as well when it came out, which is understandable. Director Spike Lee said that Hollywood's new idea was now the "Super-Duper Magical Negro" after seeing Bagger Vance. He said that it was just a reincarnation of "the same old" stereotype or caricature of African Americans as the "noble savage" or the "happy slave". "The Legend Of Bagger Vance" is boring, stereotypical, distant and vague.