Customer Reviews

The Natural (Director's Cut)

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THE NATURAL, based on the book of the same name by Bernard Malamud, is probably the greatest baseball film ever produced. Why? Because it contains no magical realism, no "tricks," no "gimmicks." It's just a film about second chances and redemption, in this case, redemption through the game of baseball. THE NATURAL is not nearly as dark as the book on which it is based and it's not totally factual in its portrayal of baseball, but who cares? This film gives us something better than facts. It gives us the poetry and lyricism of the game, the magic that made baseball "America's Pastime."

THE NATURAL is the story of Roy Hobbs (Robert Redford), a Midwestern boy who dreams of being "the best" in the world of baseball. Roy's dreams aren't just "pie in the sky." This kid has talent, talent like no one's ever seen before. But, as he's making the trip to Chicago to try out, he encounters Harriet Bird (Barbara Hershey), an enigmatic and dangerous woman, and Roy's life changes forever. Sixteen years later, though, Roy Hobbs is given what most people can only long for, a second chance. Yes, this second chance requires a stretch of the viewer's imagination, but not so much that it becomes an impossibility.

I know many people didn't care for Robert Redford's portrayal of Roy Hobbs, but I thought he was perfect. He really makes us believe in Roy and in his dreams and in his principles. I can't think of any other actor who could have carried off this role and carried it off so perfectly. Wilfred Brimley is perfect as Pop Fisher, Hobbs' manager. Robert Duvall as Max Mercy is also perfectly cast as is a very young Kim Basinger as Memo Paris, the woman who wants to be Hobbs' nemesis "the second time around." I didn't particularly like Glenn Close as Iris, but that's just personal preference. Close did a very good job with her role but not quite as good as did Basinger and Basinger's was far more demanding.

There are few mistakes in the continuity of this film. At one point, while playing for the mythical New York Knights at Wrigley Field, Hobbs' hits homeruns in the bottom of the ninth. What? He wasn't traded to the Cubs, so this has to be an oversight on the part of the production crew since the Knights, as visitors to Wrigley Field, would bat in the top of the inning. There are a few other such oversights, but I don't feel they're worth mentioning.

THE NATURAL works, and works so well, I think, because it relies so heavily on mythology, most notably the myth of the Fisher King. It romanticizes the game of baseball. Sure, it's been romanticized before, quite possibly more than any other sport, but THE NATURAL does it so well that we do believe and we do root for Roy Hobbs and all he stands for. Make us believe? This film makes us believe like no other.

Levinson has changed Malamud's ending considerably, but I feel that's for the best. Had there been no departures from the book, Hobbs wouldn't have been a sympathetic character and the film would have been too dark and contained too much despair. As it is, we're left with the promise of better things to come and hope for the future, just what baseball gave us in the "good old days."

THE NATURAL may be dismissed as "hokum" by some but I think it's an American masterpiece and pure magic.

One of my favorite movies on baseball, I knew I wanted this movie before I purchased it. It is a great asset to my collection. What this movie at least 4 times a year. Love it. Highly recomended.

Director: Barry Levinson
Format: Color
Studio: Columbia/Tristar Studios
Video Release Date: September 26, 2000

Cast:

Robert Redford ... Roy Hobbs
Robert Duvall ... Max Mercy
Glenn Close ... Iris Gaines
Kim Basinger ... Memo Paris
Wilford Brimley ... Pop Fisher
Barbara Hershey ... Harriet Bird
Robert Prosky ... The Judge
Richard Farnsworth ... Red Blow
Joe Don Baker ... The Whammer
John Finnegan ... Sam Simpson
Alan Fudge ... Ed Hobbs
Paul Sullivan Jr. ... Young Roy
Rachel Hall ... Young Iris
Robert Rich III ... Ted Hobbs
Michael Madsen ... Bartholomew 'Bump' Bailey
Jon Van Ness ... John Olsen
Mickey Treanor ... Doc Dizzy
George Wilkosz ... Bobby Savoy
Anthony J. Ferrara ... Coach Wilson
Philip Mankowski ... Hank Benz
Danny Aiello III ... Emil LaJong
Joe Castellano ... Allie Stubbs
Eddie Cipot ... Gabby Laslow
Ken Grassano ... Al Fowler
Robert Kalaf ... Cal Baker
Barry Kivel ... Pat McGee
Steven Kronovet ... Tommy Hinkle
James Meyer ... Dutch Schultz
Mike Starr ... Boone
Sam Green ... Murphy
Martin Grey ... Additional Knight
Joseph Mosso ... Additional Knight
Richard Oliveri ... Additional Knight
Lawrence Couzens ... Additional Knight
Duke McGuire ... Additional Knight
Stephen Poliachik ... Additional Knight
Kevin Lester ... Additional Knight
Joseph Charboneau ... Additional Knight
Robert Rudnick ... Additional Knight
Ken Kamholz ... Additional Knight
Sibby Sisti ... Pirates Manager
Phillip D. Rosenberg ... Pitcher Youngberry
Christopher B. Rehbaum ... Pitcher John Rhoades
Nicholas Koleff ... Umpire Augie
Jerry Stockman ... Umpire Babe
James Quamo ... Memorial Game Umpire
Joe Strnad ... Final Game Home Plate Umpire
James Mohr ... Al
Ralph Tabakin ... Al's Customer
Dennis Gould ... Carnival Boy
Joshua Abbey ... Home Plate Photographer
Gayle Vance ... Maid at Party
George Scheitinger ... League Official
Peter Poth ... Dr. Knobb
Bernie McInerney ... Hospital Doctor
Elizabeth Ann Klein ... Stern Nurse
Charles Sergis ... Newsreel Narrator
Edward Walsh ... Newsreel Presenter
Darren McGavin ... Gus Sands
Brian Reingold ... Baseball Fan

This film made quite a stir when it was released. One of Redford's better ones.

Roy Hobbs (Redford) loves baseball. He played in high school and the semi-pros, and was picked up and given a contract by a scout for the fictional big league team, the New York Knights. Of course, he is the best! A natural.

He has a problem with his past, which he is close mouthed about, but a corrupt club owner, the Judge (Robert Prosky), tries first to pay him to lose in the playoffs, and then tries to blackmail him, and to subject him to the wiles of a femme fatale. And, of course trouble comes in threes...it is also discovered that he had a bullet in his gut that could be fatal if he keeps playing ball. So, guess what? He keeps playing ball.

This is a good, entertaining story. Redford has a huge following, and for good reason. Normally, I'm not enamored of baseball films, but this is a good one. I recommend it to you.

Joseph (Joe) Pierre<P.

The Natural is the best baseball movie ever made. Great for everyone in the family.

This is a great feel-good film. Why do I say that? Because it centers around a baseball player named Roy Hobbs who gets tragically sidetracked from a promising career by a mysterious woman. Lots of great actors in this one in addition to Robert Redford such as Kim Bassingr,Robert Duvall,Wilford Brimley and Barbara Hershey. This movie will inspire you to become a better person and it teaches you that no matter how old you are its never to late to make a difference in your life or someone else's. I liked the movie alot better than the book by Bernard Malamud. This is the rare case in which the movie is better than the book. Usually it is the other way around.

Having not read the book, the movie was not a disappointment. On the contrary, I think it ranks with, if not, the best baseball movie every made. It is a story of second chances both in baseball and in love.

The movie avoids the usual Hollywood pitfalls of making a statement where no statement is needed (Holly Hunters library speech in Field of Dreams) and by avoiding meaningless cliques by the effective use of archetypes. For instance, the mystery woman who abruptly ends Hobbs fledging career is dressed in black as contrasted to Iris, Hobbs lost love, who stands in the bleachers backlighted by a halo of light. Also the use of lightening at critical movements of Hobbs life and career are but two examples of powerful archetype.

Aside from a good story, this is movie making at its best. The cinematography is beautiful. Case in point: The contest between Roy Hobbs (the Robert Redford character) and the Whammer (played to the tee by Joe Don Baker). Cool summer evening, setting sun, beautiful light, the cottonwood fluff floating gently in the air and steam periodically erupting from the locomotive- it is a visual masterpiece. Add to the beautiful cinematography, the musical score from Randy Newman. Nineteen years after the making of this movie when one hears Newman's score we think- Baseball!

The attention to detail and editing were also superb. Who make those advertising signs in the outfield? Bump Baileys meeting a premature end crashing into the outfield wall next to the crying baby sign? That is what I call attention to detail. How about this? In the train scenes the train actually rocks on its tracks as it speeds along its way- Roy has to steady himself as he talks to the woman in black. The editing is surperb- especially the water stop scene and the final at bat scene. Could this be the best baseball movie ever made?

'The Natural' (1984)

Robert Redford is an extraordinary guy. Never a word of scandal is written
about him. He lives quietly with his family on a ranch in western United
States. He runs the annual Sundance Film Festival and he is politically
active as a loyal democrat. He has had his share of bad films as all
Hollywood stars have but he has evened it all out with a Best Actor Oscar
nomination for 1973's 'The Sting' and a win in the Best Director category
for 1980's 'Ordinary People'. His other impressive list of credits include
such diverse films as 'Quiz Show' (1994) for which he received another Oscar
nomination as Best Director and 1988's gem and little seen 'The Milagro
Beanfield War' which squeezed its way in to win an Oscar for Dave Grusin's
music score. Redford's 1998 film 'The Horse Whisperer' should have had more
success but this film will become a buried treasure of the future and will
take its time to truly get noticed.

Redford's 1984 film 'The Natural' is a film that greatly divided the
critics. Some accused it of being an obvious soap opera while others
praised it as being an old fashioned story which brought back memories of
Hollywood's golden era. The plain truth is that 'The Natural' is a story of
lost youth with one man wondering how things would have turned out if his
life had gone in a different direction. What makes it extremely worthwhile
and fascinating to watch is the fact that the circumstances in this man's

life that hand him a sour lemon are determined by fate and not by choice.

Set primarily from the early to mid 1920's to about 1940, Redford plays Roy
Hobbs, a man who can do anything that the game of baseball requires.....and
he excels at it. As a friend of his says to a sports writer: "I thought you
might have heard of his 8 no-hitters." The story of 'The Natural' is truly
filled with fairy tale like qualities and sentimental charm. As a boy,
Roy's father helps him develop a talent for baseball and after his dad dies,
Roy makes a bat from a tree that was struck by lightning and appropriately
names the bat "Wonderboy" as he brands the name on his bat along with the
image of a lightning bolt. Roy also has a special lady in his life named
Iris Gaines (Glenn Close). Roy leaves her behind and intends to send for
her when he makes it in the big leagues.

At a carnival one fine day, after being provoked and taking on a bet, he
strikes out a heavy hitter in the major leagues whose nick name is "The
Whammer" (Joe Don Baker in a take on Babe Ruth). Traveling with "The
Whammer" is sports writer Max Mercy (Robert Duvall). The amazing feat
accomplished by Hobbs stuns everyone including the mysterious Harriet Bird
(Barbara Hershey) who is instrumental in Hobbs' future. The rest of the
story can be explored from here at your own convenience for fear of
spoilers.

Other notable members of the cast are Kim Basinger as a floozy who tries to
seduce Roy in a set up by gamblers and swindlers. Robert Prosky is the
film's villain as a judge determined to take over the team from Pop Fisher
(Wilford Brimley). A sly performance which goes uncredited in the film is
by Darren McGavin as an unscrupulous bookie who makes 10 million dollars a
year (about 100 million by today's standards).

Directed by Barry Levinson with a screenplay by Roger Towne and Phil
Dusenberry based on Bernard Malamud's novel, 'The Natural' is a fulfilling
drama of hope and inspiration that captured four Oscar nominations for Caleb
Deschanel's sunlight enriched photography and scenes of silhouettes and many
dark passages which make the film stand out in a truly visual fashion.
Glenn Close was the only member of the cast to receive a nomination, this
time in the Best Supporting Actress category and the art direction/set
decoration made the era look totally authentic as it and the triumphantly
rousing music score by Randy Newman were also nominated.

For those who have flocked away from the game of baseball in recent years
since the devastating loss of the World Series in 1994 due to labour and
management difficulties, 'The Natural' and 1989's 'Field of Dreams' are two
great films that renew your faith in the game and may draw you to it even if
you were never a baseball fan to begin with.

I thought Robert Redford gave a good performance in the movie but it was not a great plot and it could have been better written and directed. The movie is somewhat complicated and slow moving. There is only limited baseball action. A lot of it is about the main character a player - Redford - and whether he is too ill or not to play an important game and whether or not he will throw the game as demanded by his manager to help the bookies. It is not a movie/DVD that I would run out and buy.

If you want a good baseball movie see Field of Dreams with Kevin Costner.

Jack in Toronto

This film is based on but takes certain liberties with Bernard Malamud's novel of the same name, published in 1952. The focal point is Roy Hobbs (Robert Redford) who encounters all manner of barriers while attempting to become the world's greatest baseball player. Both in the novel and in the film, he has critically important relationships with three women: mysterious Harriet Bird (Barbara Hershey), devious Memo Paris (Kim Basinger), and "grand motherly" Iris Lemon in the novel who is renamed Iris Gaines (played by Glenn Close) in the film. The plot slowly builds to a truly exciting climax when an injured and weak Hobbs has one last chance to help his team win a championship. To this point, he has been victimized by so many people but he is sustained by Iris' love and devotion as he steps into the batter's box. (In the novel, she observes, "We have two lives, Roy, the life we learn with and the life we live with after that. Suffering is what brings us toward happiness.") Whether or not the New York Knights win, he has finally found personal happiness as he awaits the first pitch. And then....

For those who have already seen The Natural, many of their favorite scenes and images are probably the same as my own. The pyrotechnical climax, of course, but also Roy's confrontation with The Whammer (Joe Don Baker) as a train and its other passengers await nearby, the uncommonly tender relationship which gradually develops between Roy and Iris, Duvall's almost cartoonish portrayal of cynical sportswriter Max Mercy, and Darren McGavin's brilliant portrayal of Gus Sands. Other members of the supporting cast are also first-rate, notably Barbara Hershey and Wilford Brimley.

It is important to keep in mind that the film is based on a novel in which Malamud blends fantasy and reality so brilliantly that we begin to think that the highest levels of human imagination are the purest forms of reality. Phil Dusenbury's screenplay is faithful to Malamud while allowing director Levinson and his cast to present the narrative in remarkably effective visual terms. Caleb Deschanel was nominated for an Academy Award for best cinematography but it was presented to Chris Menges (The Killing Fields). My own preference was Miroslav Ondricek). One man's opinion.

The Natural is like a good beer. When you are young it tastes different than when you get older. As a kid, the first time I watched The Natural I dreamed to be the hero like Robert Redford, helping the losing team become a respectable and a winning team. I didn't understand the flashbacks but I believed in the magic.
The story begins with a young Roy Hobbs practicing baseball. One summer night a huge lightening bolt strikes an oak tree outside of his bedroom window. Hobbs makes a bat from the fallen oak tree. He carves a lightening bolt onto the bat and carriers the bat throughout his baseball career. This event is where Hobbs is transformed; he can play infield, the outfield and has unnatural power when at bat. Robert Redford plays the part of Roy Hobbs perfectly. He is quiet, determined and focused, he appears to be a natural athlete. The story takes a turn due to bad luck; all baseball players are superstitious as the movie gives a lot reference to that.
Women are Hobs' weakness and cause him to have bad luck in his life. This is a problem for athletes because they get distracted. Kim Bassinger plays her role well as a beautiful seductress. And the reason this story is great is that Hobbs' love for the game gives him the power to give every once of his strength to the game he loves. This story gets better each time you see it and it never goes flat. It is a classic.