The Greatest Game Ever Played (DVD)

...it be Disney, by far the best at this genre. They are tricky movies to make and America are the only ones to really achieve in the field, so to speak. The less said about British sports movies the better. The real sports events themselves are a far better idea for drama here so we leave well alone. Films like Goal and When Saturday Comes are wasting everyone's time.

Outside of team sports like Gridiron, Basketball and Baseball that ...
...golf has faired the best to make entertaining movies,' The Greatest Game Ever Played' another good effort. The thing with golf is that you can make a comedy too, Caddyshack and Happy Gilmore to name but two. They even made a chick flick out of the sport that women name as the most boring, the excellent Tin Cup with René Russo and the always excellent sporting movie legend Kevin Costner a fun view.

For a Disney film the narrative and ... more

If you want someone to make a sports movie then let it be Disney, by far the best at this genre. They are tricky movies to make and America are the only ones to really achieve in the field, so to speak. The less said about British sports movies the better. The real sports events themselves are a far better idea for drama here so we leave well alone. Films like Goal and When Saturday Comes are wasting everyone's time.

Outside of team sports like Gridiron, Basketball and Baseball that have enjoyed hundreds of cool movies between them in America golf has faired the best to make entertaining movies,' The Greatest Game Ever Played' another good effort. The thing with golf is that you can make a comedy too, Caddyshack and Happy Gilmore to name but two. They even made a chick flick out of the sport that women name as the most boring, the excellent Tin Cup with René Russo and the always excellent sporting movie legend Kevin Costner a fun view.

For a Disney film the narrative and dialect here are not too childish and if you watched National Treasure with Nicholas Cage over the holidays you will know what I mean when I say that. Although the story is a simple rag to riches one it is based on a true story of golfing history and so works on many levels, Shia LeBeouf, excellent in the lead role as Francis Quimet, the young aspiring amateur golfer who is forced from the game he loves by rules and snobbery, but is finally entered in the 1913 US Open to face the all-conquering British challenge from great champion Harry Vardon, he too a victim of class victimisation in his country.

-The Cast-

Shia LaBeouf ... Francis Ouimet
Jonathan Higgins ... Embry Wallis
Stephen Marcus ... Ted Ray
Matthew Knight ... Young Francis Ouimet
Josh Flitter ... Eddie Lowery
Stephen Dillane ... Harry Vardon
Amanda Tilson ... Young Sarah Wallis
Peyton List ... Sarah Wallis
Elias Koteas ... Arthur Ouimet
James Paxton ... Young Harry Vardon
Jamie Merling ... Young Louise Ouimet
Eugenio Esposito ... Young Raymond Ouimet
Marnie McPhail ... Mary Ouimet
Jeremy Thibodeau ... Raymond Ouimet

-The Plot-

Young Harry Vardon, the great British champion, grew up next to a golf course, the game in his soul, but not from the right social class to ever be accepted by the sport he excels in, run by toffs and businessmen. When Vardon (Stephen Dillane) is appointed a club pro at a prestigious course he is also asked by the British golfing establishment to return to America 13 years after his first victory in the US Open to try and win it back for the honour of the country and the club. He will be joined on the boat by big hitting, cigar smoking, boozing talking Scottish champ Embray Wallis (Jonathan Higgins).

Suffering similar class prejudice is polite young Francis Quimet, he too born next to a golf course, the game also in his blood, the famous Brookline course in New York State to be the host of the coming US Open. Francis has been inspired by Vardon since he was knee high to a grasshopper to play golf and now the great man is coming to Brookline. But as young Francis is only a caddy at the course he is banned from entering the clubhouse, never mind the qualifying tournament for the open, his dream just that.

Although his mom Mary (Marnie McPhail) is fully behind his dream dad Arthur (Elias Koteas) isn't, a chip on the shoulder the size of the one young Quimet will have to play to even get near the 18th at Brookline. Dad thinks golf is not for the likes of them although agrees to lend his boy the $50 entrance fee for the qualifying tournament if he gives up the game and learns a proper trade if he doesn't qualify. Frances reluctantly agrees and tees up on the first, only allowed around the rules because of a sympathetic benefactor and club member who thinks the boy has the game to test the best.

The love interest is elegant posh beauty Sarah Wallis (Peyton List), the club secretary's daughter, certainly not suitable for the likes of Francis, but she taking a shine to his decency and honour around women. But Sarah has another admirer, arrogant and short tempered defending US Open Champion Ted Ray (Stephen Marcus)

Once the two Americans and two Brits are safely in the field to battle it out for the 1913 US open the film finds its gear box. Poor Francis can't get a caddy though and so ends up with a little schoolboy friend carrying the bag, Eddie Lowery (Josh Flitter), bringing further mirth on the audacious attempt for a 20-year-old caddy to even contemplate mixing it with the best in the world in the Open. But this is the movies and Francis is soon climbing the leaderboard...

-The Conclusion-

This is a Disney film guys and so needs tension and so some scenes are altered for the good of that although the events actually happened in roughly the right order and so it has credibility. Whether it's a story anyone cares about outside of golf is another matter. I'm sure they will make the Tiger Woods story at that amazing 1997 Masters fifty years from now and so it falls into that category.
Shia LeBeouf (cruelly nicknamed Shi*e LeBeouf by some film hacks) is rather two dimensional in the lead role but still Carries it off well bringing through the innocence of the kid at the time. No characters have any depth in the film to be honest as this is a family sports movie of rags to riches. I don't need tell you the ending as I'm sure you can work it out.

One slight let down was the unneeded CGI effects following the golf ball around the course and at times you thought a Gopher was going to popup, Caddyshack style, they were that out of place, considering it was supposed to be 1913, the same way the Illusionist with Ed Norton suffered for those mechanical special effects. But the rest of it was all very fine and very Disney, the story told well with a mostly and suitably unknown cast and no pretensions. It's not quite as gripping as you hoped and by-the-numbers stuff when it comes to the building the obvious story but its one just about worth telling and will entertain. Buts it's more Mighty Ducks than Mark Walberg's 'Invincible' if you're looking for serious and authentic narrative.

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Imdb.com scores it 7.3 out of 10.0 (6,233 votes)
RuN-TiMe 120 minutes
Five DVDs for £5 for seven nights deal at Blockbusters.
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