|
Advertisement |
Overall Rating
 Awesome: 45.61%
Worth A Look: 22.81%
Average: 14.04%
Pretty Bad: 14.04%
Total Crap: 3.51%
5 reviews, 27 user ratings
|
|
| Bull Durham |
by Jack Sommersby
"The Best Sports Film and the Best Film of 1988"
|
Sure, there have been some marvelous baseball comedies by the likes of "The Bad News Bears" and "Major League", but neither comes close to the cinematic magic writer/director Ron Shelton graced the silver screen with here.Screenwriter Ron Shelton wrote a dandy screenplay for 1986's The Best of Times, which dealt with small-town high-school football and showcased an array of appealing, funny, interesting characters. In his directorial debut, Bull Durham, which he also wrote, he's managed to incorporate a similar strong character base into a quaint tale of a love triangle during a season of minor-league baseball. And the result is nothing short of magical. Kevin Costner plays Crash Davis, an articulate veteran catcher whose baseball knowledge unfortunately exceeds his talent; Tim Robbins is Ebby Calvin "Nuke" LaLoosh, a rookie pitcher who's got a "million-dollar arm but a five-cent head"; and Susan Sarandon is Annie Savoy, the Durham Bulls's number-one fan who chooses one player each season to tutor the rudiments of baseball and sex to (she ends up with Nuke but longs for Crash). Instead of following the rules of most sports films (even his own The Best of Times), Shelton doesn't structure the story so the final payoff is a final crucial game; rather, the payoff that's worked up to is purely emotional, with two soul mates finally letting down their guards, accepting their limitations and mortality, and feeling agog over the rich rewards of doing so. The film manages to hit as many emotional highs as a daytime tv drama, yet they feel genuine and, more importantly, earned; the main characters don't run to a particular type, and their moods and joys and frustrations aren't easily pegged -- you sometimes have to interpret their silences as well as their words. Shelton is some kind of genius at keeping the dramatics perfectly blended with the humor, which is a considerably arduous task considering just how gut-funny the comedy is. Whether it's Nuke muttering to himself on the mound that wearing a garter belt doesn't make him "queer", Crash succumbing to an empire's taunting to get him thrown out of a game, a time-out on the pitcher's mound that results in a discussion about the perfect wedding gift, all are perfect examples of the comedy growing from incident and character rather than blatantly presented gags. Costner, Sarandon, and Robbins have never been better, and the film is a near-flawless masterpiece that has continued to stand the test of time.The special-edition DVD is a must-have for fans, with an ingratiating audio commentary by Costner and Robbins.
 del.icio.us 
link directly to this review at http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=1088&reviewer=327
originally posted: 03/27/05 04:24:37
![[printer]](/images/icon/printer.gif) printer-friendly format
|
 |
USA
02-Jun-1988 (R)
UK
N/A
Australia
02-Feb-1988 (M)
|
|
Articles 
subscribe to this feed
![[AllPosters.com]](/images/icon/ap.gif){kind=icon}
