No.150 : The Natural (1984)

The Natural at the IMDb

I always enjoy a good sports film but I’d never seen ‘The Natural’ before. Maybe the long run time of 137 minutes put me off or maybe the whole thing looked a bit too wholesome for my slightly seedier tastes. Well, now that I have seen it I can say it’s well worth a look and, although not the best baseball film I’ve seen (Major League 3 : Back to the Minors, seeing as you ask) it’s still pretty good.

We open with a young lad playing ball with his Dad - an idyllic scene right up to the point Pop has a heart attacked and snuffs it and then a tree gets hit by lightning for good measure. The lad is Roy Hobbs and when fate gives him an exploded tree he makes a baseball bat out of it. He calls the bat ‘Wonderboy’ just like Homer Simpson’s ‘Wonder bat’ - in fact most of the baseball Simpsons episode pays homage to this film, so that’s a blind spot in my education erased.

We jump forward a few years and the young lad has become Robert Redford. That’s one tough paper round he had! Redford was 38 when he made this, and there is no effort to explain why a 38 year old is playing a teenager. I thought I’d stick with it an all would be revealed - an old man’s fantasy maybe? No, they just didn’t have ‘The Irishman’ style de-ageing then, so just go with it.

Roy gets a call up to the Chicago Cubs and says goodbye to his equally middle-aged, but playing it  young, girlfriend Glenn Close. Roy gets on the train to Chicago and meets sports hack Robert Duvall and ‘The Whammer’ a Babe Ruth type baseball legend. The journalist sets up a bet that Roy can strike out The Whammer which he does, and in turn attracts the attentions of psycho groupie, Barbara Hershey. Barbara takes him back to hers but shoots him in the guts for his trouble. Not what he expected when she agreed to fire into him!

16 years pass and we meet the same Robert Redford whom everyone is now calling ‘Granddad’. He has been signed up by the New York Knights, the worst team in baseball. The manager doesn’t fancy Redford and keeps him on the bench, but a couple of strokes of luck, and a bad bay for Mr Blonde, see him in the team. Roy is a smash hit until he meets floozy Kim Basinger, the squeeze of the local bookie. Soon Roy is facing bribes and a slump in form. Will an old flame reignite the magic and will an old would prevent Roy from winning the pennant and saving the club?

You could probably delve into the subtext of this film and come up with an allegory for the corruption of the American Dream. I didn’t bother and enjoyed the tale of a man striving to win against the odds for what it was. There was a lot of nostalgia flying about with the games and crowds all wonderfully realised by director Barry Levinson.

The turning points of Roy’s life all involved the dames and I think the message is that you’d do better if you kept your pecker in your pocket. The villains such as the bookie and wannabe club owner, The Judge, were all a bit boo hiss and I wondered why they didn’t just bump Roy off rather than try to turn his head.

Some of Roy’s hits were great such as one where the ball is knocked out of it’s cover and others that destroyed clocks and stadium lights. It was well done and you’d be a cold individual not to get the chills when Roy faces the last pitch 2-0 down with two outs and two men on. To be honest I wasn’t sure he was going to win when a young version of himself was the new pitcher - would the story continue with the new ‘natural’? Nah, but it was a nice thought.

I was surprised that the film did as well as it did in awards season as I thought it was a bit slight, but like ‘Field of Dreams’ I think it would speak to Americans about better, more innocent times when you could meet women on trains and be shot by them!

Redford was good, but it was a mistake not to have any attempt at him looking any younger in his adolescent scenes - at one point I’m sure the conductor was going to give him senior citizen discount! The film more than makes up with that one conceit with an excellent cast and a finely realised world.

THE Tag Line :  Whammy!  79%

No.30 : The Clearing (2004)

The Clearing at the IMDb

Robert Redford, Helen Mirren and Willem Dafoe star in this under seen but highly watchable kidnap thriller.

Redford plays Wayne, a successful businessman who lives in a fancy home with Helen. He heads off to work and is reminded to be home by six for a dinner party, but never shows up. Mirren has a sleepless night before calling the cops. We then flit back and forth to see how the kidnapping played out while Mirren realises what has happened.

We then join Redford and his kidnapper Dafoe in the titular woodland area where their psychological battle takes place. At the homestead Helen tries to keep a brave face as the FBI unravel their private life, including Robert’s past affairs. She’s helped along by her grown up children who included the annoying English guy out of the ’Goal’ films.

Dafoe, who at first seems a well organised planner, slowly starts to unravel as Redford pries into his past and spots his false moustache. Usually the advice isn’t to antagonise one’s captor or to get information that may later identify them but Dafoe is a regular chatterbox which may not bode well for Redford.

As kidnapper and hostage head towards the hunting lodge where the former’s confederates lie in wait Mirren has to contend to with being the bag woman for the $10 million in diamonds ransom. Will Wayne’s world come crashing down as he attempts a last ditch escape? Will Helen forgive and forget or keep the sparklers? and will our old pal the non-linear narrative have a last card to play?

This film is based on a real life Dutch kidnapping and although this film is peppered with a-listers you do still have a sense of foreboding for Redford’s character throughout. Redford is a well known friend of the definitive movie fan with ‘The Natural’, ‘The Sting’ and ‘The Candidate’ (not heard of that one) all in our future. He’s not a favourite of mine, always appearing to play himself, but he’s certainly got a great body of work behind him.

Speaking of great bodies Helen Mirren does her usual solid work although, shockingly, she keeps her clothes on for most of the film. Dafoe is great as the slightly unhinged kidnapper whose confidence is gradually chipped away by Redford’s sharp talking. I liked his cloudy motivation and unpredictability - the scariest kind of bad guys!

‘The Clearing’ of the title is probably more of a notion of clarity rather than a defined space in the woods as there isn‘t really one shown in the film. There probably was one, like the bit where Wayne put on his trainers but that was hardly a major plot point. Maybe it was referring to someone’s schedule being cleared? Yes, that’ll do it for me.

The triumph of the film is to keep you caring for a womanising, slightly smarmy lead who is on a hook for most of the film. As his life with Mirren is deconstructed by the Feds, and then by the wife who goes to see the mistress, you see that his bravado is all a front and he’s as scared as any of us would be in the situation he finds himself in.

The finale of the ransom drop has the familiar run around town elements with the bad guys always one step ahead, but it’s a welcome step up in pace and the tension generated makes for a fitting climax. As the film flits between the two leads you’re keen to get back to the other one and then back again so a good job done Mr Editor. The ending itself is no great surprise, if you pay attention throughout the film but is no less affecting for all that.

Some may find the pace a bit pedestrian, but I like a slow boiler and if you stick with it to the end you’ll be glad you did.

THE Tag Line : Worth Seeing Is The Clearing 67%