Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius (2004)
*/****
starring James Caviezel, Claire Forlani, Jeremy Northam, Malcolm McDowell
screenplay by Rowdy Herrington and Bill Pryor
directed by Rowdy Herrington
by Walter Chaw Displaying a troubling affection for long-suffering historical figures planted in the middle of amped-up costume epics, James ("I prefer Jim") Caviezel follows up his dazed turn as a saviour with another dazed turn as a saviour: Bobby Jones, the last voice of virtue in professional sports, steadfastly refusing to take one filthy piece of silver and so betray his amateur (Latin root: love) status on the PGA tour. Scored by another tongue-bath of a score by James Horner (bring a squeegee and a change of clothes, you'll feel like you've taken a swim in a spittoon), Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius is every bit as episodic, derivative, patronizing, and bloated as Horner's compositions–the man, by himself, defining a genre of picture perhaps fatally damaged by his very intrusion. (If there's any one indicator that the upcoming Troy is going to be awful, it's that Wolfgang Petersen (himself no great source for confidence) has elected to reunite with Perfect Storm collaborator Horner.) But there's so much more wrong with Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius than just the music, the winking title, and the truism that for as boring as golf is to watch on television, it's that much more boring to watch in reverent celluloid slow motion–no, the picture is also fatally tagged by a terrible screenplay and terrible direction (that includes a half dozen ball's-eye view shots: not as interesting as you might misunderstand), as well as the dreadfully persistent belief that the measure of a man's life are the crescendos and valleys rather than the caesuras and grace notes.