Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies

There's a hole in this one

Bobby Jones, Stroke of Genius plays like a long par 5: fascinating to golfers, a bit slow for the rest of us.

Bobby Jones, Stroke of Genius doesn't gallop like last year's Seabiscuit, although both films glorify athletes who inspired a nation around the same depressed times. It's just the nature of contrast between horse racing and golf, one as breakneck as the other is leisurely. Seabiscuit had everything necessary to mythologize a hero. The Jones movie simply has a hero.

The story of Robert Tyre Jones Jr. doesn't have much drama to be embellished. Jones was the master of golf before he created the Masters tournament, too hot-headed for his own good at times, drinking a bit too much and enduring a hard-to-pinpoint neurological ailment. That internalized conflict is something director and co-writer Rowdy Herrington can't quite convey.

The film becomes a series of episodes that define Jones' public personality but not his pull on the public. While Seabiscuit turned American history into a compelling back story, Herrington's movie doesn't. The period detail is wonderful with its cars and clothes, yet aside from a few mentions of tough times in the 1920s and 30s, the Great Depression is someone else's problem.

After awhile, we've seen so many great shots re-enacted, so many long putts curling into the cup, that they all run together. Herrington's attempts to spice up the drama are repetitious. At times, the movie is so slow that viewers who aren't hooked on golf may want to play through.

But at other times, Bobby Jones, Stroke of Genius is dead, solid perfect, especially its first half-hour tracing Jones' sickly childhood and his preternatural affection for the game. We see that bad temper came honestly, from a father (Brett Rice) whose bad golfing taught a colorful vocabulary to young Bobby, played by Devon Gearhart and Thomas Lewis at different ages. Herrington is more adept at dramatizing Jones' budding greatness than explaining what was accomplished with it.

Jim Caviezel (The Passion of the Christ) takes over the role as Jones reaches adulthood, getting few chances from the screenplay to express anything besides an inconsistent string of behaviors. Bobby is on or off his game depending only on when Herrington wants to pull some heartstrings. Caviezel is too sedate in tense scenes and even less credible when he blows his stack. He does mimic Jones' classic swing well.

Herrington also stages scenes at St. Andrews in Scotland, where Jones' best highs and worst lows took place, and briefly at the Augusta National course he designed. Those sights and some interesting camera moves to track the ball in play will thrill avid golfers.

Obstacles are raised - a nasty case of varicose veins, a ban from playing until he controls his anger, a neglected wife (Claire Forlani) - then quickly dispatched. One scene involving a rival, Walter Hagen (Jeremy Northam), rallying other golfers against Jones seems out of position considering how that relationship develops. Finally, there's nothing left to explain except the obvious, that Jones won the Grand Slam of his day - U.S. and British Amateurs and the U.S. and British Opens - then retired at age 28.

No scandals, no genuine threats of his career ending. Even Jones' character flaws are buffed, possibly because of the respect from private investors who financed this independent project, and with good reason. Bobby Jones had all the characteristics of a champion; his explanation of the word "amateur" is a lesson for jocks today. Yet without the personal, even selfish drama provided by lesser mortals, it's tough to make a gripping movie. The real Bobby Jones deserves a rousing cheer; the movie of his career gets a polite golf clap.

Grade: B

Director: Rowdy Herrington

Cast: Jim Caviezel, Jeremy Northam, Malcolm McDowell, Claire Forlani, Brett Rice, Connie Ray, Aidan Quinn, Devon Gearhart, Thomas Lewis

Screenplay: Rowdy Herrington, Bill Pryor

Rating: PG; profanity, brief alcohol abuse

Running time: 128 min.