Le Meilleur - Édition Spéciale

Beyond the general psychology of sports in America, baseball has a ranking with pride of place, being a national pasttime. To this end, to further my research for this review, I treated myself to that most American of activities, a baseball game, on that most American of holidays, the fourth of July. Being nearest to Indianapolis, there are no major leagues in town, so I went to the minor league game (Indianapolis Indians against the Louisville Riverbats -- the Indians won handily 7-2). I finally began to have some insights into what could be interesting and exciting and fun about baseball. I am certain that my reflections on 'The Natural' would be very different without that experience.

Perhaps it is a fantasy of many Americans to be a natural at sports in general, and some sport in particular. Baseball, having been woven into the history of the country, gives a particular insight into what can be best and worst in life through the game -- honour, glory, happiness; greed, betrayal, vice.

Barry Levinson's 1984 film, 'The Natural', shows the love of the game in full force. Robert Redford plays Roy Hobbs, an almost mythically inspired character, complete with mythic instruments (a bat that is made from a lightning charged tree, perhaps a bat 'anointed by the gods', as it were). Having been a natural from childhood days, he suffers an injury by a mysterious woman in his young manhood that (so far as we know in the film) cuts short a promising career. Is she the Delilah that cuts down a Sampson? If so, why (other than to set up the rest of the film).

Many years later, a much more mature Hobbs returns from out of nowhere to lead a desperate team to victory, overcoming the greed and corruption that big-time money injects into the game for a riveting, round-the-bases having hit out the lights home run that brings the fans to their feet and the puts the bad guys to shame.

What could be more natural than that?

While this is a good story and ends with a happy, yet somewhat incomplete scene of Hobbs playing ball with with a boy (will he be a natural, too?) while a rescued woman (oh yes, did I forget the love story? -- my mistake -- Glenn Close turns in a reasonable but far from her best performance as the love interest on the sidelines while Kim Basinger plays the sultry temptress intertwined in the murky dealing with the power brokers) watches, there are too many unexplained events and tenuous connexions for me to think of this as a great film. Unanswered questions abound.

However, the movie is good entertainment, even for someone who hasn't been to a baseball game. The pace is leisurely (like a baseball game), and the action goes from slow to riveting to gentle to exciting and back again. The dialogue is not inspired, but adequate for the plot. Some judicious editing might have made the movie hold together a bit better.

I can see the love of the game over all other considerations, and I can sense that in Hobbs character. And I can see the reality in many of the other characters. However, this is not executed well enough in philosophic terms to be a morality tale, and underdeveloped in human terms.

In the end, like the baseball game I attended on the fourth of July, I'm glad I saw it, but alas, I didn't fall in love with it. Perhaps I'm just a cricket man at heart.