Vintage

Starring Robert Redford, The Natural is a baseball flick about a baseball wunderkind, Roy Hobbs (Redford).  It is the 1920s. Hobbs is a gifted athlete who can do it all in baseball.  However, in his early years, he is nearly shot and killed by a sinister woman and his baseball career is derailed before it ever really had a chance to go anywhere.  Cut to 16 years later and Hobbs is a middle-aged Rookie looking for a chance to get back into baseball. 

Hobbs starts to knock the cover off the baseball after finally given a begrudging chance to play by the old grizzled coach Pop Fisher (Wilford Brimley).  Unfortunately, the owner of the New York Knights, wants the team to lose so they can sell his share of the team. 

The Natural is just about as good as it gets when it comes to baseball flicks. However, for my dollar, it is not one of my all time favorite sports movies, but this may simply be a personal preference.  I found the movie a tad bit overly sentimental.  Everything Hobbs did was done to orchestral accompaniment and Homeric slow motion takes to emphasize the Herculean gifts of Roy Hobbs.  Great movie yes.  I can't give it an "Ace" simply because I don't really care to watch it all the time.  I get it early on that Hobbs is a "Natural." In fact, when I happen to watch any of The Natural, I seldom finish the film. So it gets a "King" for its inexplicable inability to hold my natural interest.