The Greatest Game Ever Played (2005)

Directed by Bill Paxton. Starring Shia LaBeouf, Stephen Dillane, Elias Koteas, Peter Firth, Josh Flitter, Marnie McPhail, Peyton List, Stephen Marcus, Luke Askew, Justin Ashforth, Michael Weaver, Michael Sinelnikoff, Max Kasch, Len Cariou. [PG]

For the record, it may be debatable what exactly is the “greatest game ever played,” but it’s not debatable that it wasn’t a round of golf (c’mon…be serious now). The pretty darn good game played here depicts young amateur, Francis Ouimet (LaBeouf), taking on stiff competition at the 1913 U.S. Open from the likes of storied British pro, Harry Vardon (Dillane), among others. Paxton’s second—and final—feature as director (following the sometimes-brilliant and wholly-different Frailty) is a gentle, family-friendly sports drama that offers nary a surprise (regardless of familiarity with the game in question) and struggles with clumsy footing in the first half, including a lukewarm romantic sub-plot shoehorned into the narrative without any function besides padding, and Ouimet being provided a “cute kid” caddie (Flitter) for comic relief. Fortunately, the film settles down in the second hour as the links action takes over, and Paxton and director of photography Shane Hurlbut keep things lively with dynamic shot selections (zoom pans, slo-mo eruptions of grass and dirt, golf ball POV, etc.). Lays on its “gentleman’s game” class politics thick at every turn—with Ouimet’s chief opponent being portrayed as an honorable competitor, an antagonist needed to be manufactured elsewhere, so why not an entire social cancer? Golf purists may quibble about liberties taken with the championship results for the sake of a more dramatic ending. Adapted from Mark Frost’s 2002 book by Frost himself; he also co-produced.

59/100