The Natural 1984
I saw this movie when it came out and, as a fan of Randy Newman, even got the soundtrack LP, which I listened to all the time. Even though everyone knows the main theme, all the other themes are still in my head, so it is fun hearing those come up in the movie. The Natural is kind of a superhero movie, focused primarily on this one character who is so incredibly good at baseball, both pitching and hitting, that he is beyond human. Superhero movies don't always have well fleshed out side characters or a lot of twists and turns. So you have this early story where we get to see his superpowers at work. Then he is laid low and pops up again mysteriously, but is still amazing. He has few flaws as a player and as a person. The villains are also key to the story and you can't do much better than Robert Duvall, Darren McGavin, and Robert Prosky. There is the sweetheart, played by Glenn Close, and femme fatales played by Barbara Hershey and Kim Basinger. The managers of the baseball team are two of the best you could imagine: Wilford Brimley and Richard Farnsworth. So there is the amazing supporting cast even though it is really all about Robert Redford's character, Roy Hobbs. There are some odd choices made in the movie by the writer and director and maybe not everything works or seems plausible, but part of that is the superhero cycle at work. I'm taking off a little bit for some of that. But overall this is a very enjoyable movie to watch, jumping right into the superhero stuff, bogging down a little in the middle, and then the intrigue and melodrama pays off at the end.
Written: 27 Oct 2024
Owned on: Digital