Saturday, June 04, 2011

The Natural (1984)



The Natural is a heartwarming tale of a baseball player's last attempt at making it in the major league. Roy Hobbs (Robert Redford) first attempt at the majors is thwarted by a mysterious woman who kills world elite athletes for some unexplained reason. The movie starts off with Roy going back to his old farm and whittling a bat out of a tree split by light, which he names "wonderboy." With his extreme talent and wonderboy, Roy is able to get a shot at the majors with the fictious New York Knights. While his team and manager are skeptical, Roy finally gets a shot, and literally knocks the cover off the ball in his first major league at bat, becoming the hero of the national league. Now the movie wouldn't be worth watching if there wasn't some adversity . Roy faces his old age, his old bullet wound injury, and a Bookey who gets one of his girls to pretend to have a relationship with Roy in order to ruin him. With the help of wonderboy, his virtues, and an old love (Glen Close), he is able to overcome all odds and help his team win the pennant.
Robert Redford is a great actor, who is always in the zone. There aren't many other actors that are in the present as much as Redford. I've been a huge Redford fan ever since Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Not only is his acting in this film on point, but the guy never ages. In this film there are flashback scenes where he plays himself as a nineteen year old, and then a thirty-five year old for the remainder of the movie. Redford was in fact forty eight while filming this movie. Incredible acting. This move is a must watch.

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