Movie #464: The Natural

The Natural is a sportsball movie starring Robert Redford, Robert Duvall, Wilford Brimley, Kim Basinger, Glenn Close, Darren McGavin, Michael Madsen, Barbara Hershey, and probably other people I'm forgetting.

Roy Hobbs (Redford) is a gifted baseball player who, upon getting to Chicago to try out for the cubs, get shot in the stomach by a crazy woman who kills sports stars (Hershey). Note that upon until this point in the movie, it's all very standard sportsball stuff; gifted athlete, leaving his girl Iris (Close) behind until he gets signed then he'll marry her, takes on an arrogant sportsball star (Joe Don Baker) and wins...and then bang. My comment to Michelle was "this is some Black Swan shit right here."

Fast forward 16 years, and Pop (Brimley) is the manager of the Cleveland Indians New York Knights, and gets Hobbs assigned to his team. He eventually decides to actually play Hobbs, discovers he's great, and then the movie becomes a more recognizable sportsball movie - Hobbs get popular, people are intrigued by his mysterious past, he falls in with the wrong woman (Basinger), who immediately cools his hot streak with...the power of being a bad influence, I guess? But then Iris comes back into his life and he starts winning again, he gets poisoned, plays in his final game and makes many score-points!

This is one of those movies, like Enter the Dragon, that even if you haven't seen it you've kinda seen it. In particular, BASEketball takes a bunch of moments from it, which was surreal. It won a bunch of Oscars when it came out, and sure, it's that kind of movie, but eh. I was nonplussed.

Part of the issue is that it's about baseball, objectively the most boring sport, and I can't believe they make movies about it as though it's exciting (said the guy who stayed up late watching DVR'd soccer matches). Part of it is that the whole way through the movie Hobbs refuses to say anything about himself, and there's a guy who met him and had what was probably a memorable moment with him (Duvall, playing a sports writer) who now has no idea who he is. And, Hobbs is completely terrified that his true past will get out, and like, dude, you got shot. (They do actually address this, though far too late in the film - Hershey's character threw herself out the window after shooting Hobbs, so it's a dead girl on the sidewalk and a guy shot on the floor, which doesn't look great for anyone.)

Anyway, it's a well-made movie, the performances are good, and the score is actually great, so it's definitely a classic. But like, baseball.

My Grade: B+
Rewatch Value: Low

Next up: Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind