***Spoiler Alert*** No offense to "Field of Dreams" or "The Sandlot" but "The Natural" is the best baseball movie ever made, in my opinion. Roy Hobbs (Robert Redford) is a baseball phenom as a child and is certain to become a big league star someday. As a young child while playing baseball with his father, his father has a sudden heart attack and dies under a tree in their yard. Several years later, that same tree is struck by lightning and broken into pieces. Hobbs makes a special bat from that tree in his father's honor and names the bat "Wonderboy". When Hobbs gets older he has a chance for a tryout to play in the big leagues. While on his way to the tryout, he gets the chance strikeout a famous major league hitter names Whammer. After striking out Whammer with pitches one could barely see. Hibbs then meets a lady by the name of Harriet Bird (Barbara Hershey) who befriends Hobbs but then shoots him before committing suicide. This would take Hobbs out of the game for 15 years before he would reappear and be given a chance with the last place New York Knights. This is when the theme of the movie, redemption, begins to unfold. The manager of the Knights, Pop Fisher (Wilford Brimley), thinks Hobbs is just a middle-aged rookie with no chance of being a contributor to the team. For a while, Pops just lets Hobbs languish on the bench while the Knights continue to lose. One day at batting practice, Pops witnesses Hobbs hit home run after home run into the stands and decides it's time to give Hobbs a chance to play. Hobbs dominates and becomes the most feared hitter in baseball. As his star rises so does the success of the team and by the end of the year, the Knights have a chance at winning the pennant. The past begins to come back to haunt Hobbs as his injury he suffered while being shot 15 years ago flares up and lands him in the hospital just as the Knights are on the verge of winning the pennant. Hobbs wills his way out of the hospital and onto the field as the Knights are struggling and on the verge of missing out on the pennant. Hobbs plays in the last game and strikes out the first few times he comes to the plate. During his last at bat, his prized bat shatters while hitting a foul ball. He takes a bat from the bat boy and proceeds to hit a majestic home run that shatters the light stand on the roof in right field and wins the pennant for the Knights. "The Natural" uses clever lighting techniques during the final scene where Hobbs hits the home run into the light stand and sparks start flying all over the sky and even onto the players on the field. I also enjoyed the movie's use of sound during the game scenes where you could hear the fans yelling at the players and the sounds of the crack of the bat while hitting the bar. The film has similarities to movies like "Rocky" where the main character rises from nothing to become a hero. I love the story of redemption and I will watch this movie any time it appears on TV.

This movie reminded me a lot about the movie "Cujo" in one way. I'd read the book ("Cujo") before seeing the film. And the film's upbeat ending was a far cry better than the dreary end of the book. Likewise with this film ("The Natural") - except that I saw the movie first.A few minutes ago (and for the first time), I just finished reading the novel by Bernard Malamud. The novel, for the most part, was a pretty good read. But I absolutely hated the ending - totally different than the way the movie ended. In fact, I hated its ending so much that, tomorrow, I'm going to donate the book to my library (fighting my first urge to burn it or toss it out with my weekly trash pickup). I will *never* want to read it again.But the movie? I've watched it several times. And I will no doubt watch it time and time again ... especially now, to take the bad taste out of my mouth left by the novel. Screenplay writers Roger Towne & Phil Dusenberry did a splendid job of transforming Malamud's novel into a hopeful saga of courage & honor with an exceptionally satisfying climax. And Robert Redford, et al, made the Oscar-nominated saga believable and palatable at the same time.So, watch the movie ... but avoid the novel like the plague.

After winning a best director Oscar in 1981, Robert Redford kind of semi retired from the movies. Setting up The Sundance Institute and raising funding for his personal directing projects left him with little appetite for acting work.The Natural an almost Arthurian story based on Bernard Malamud's book was Redford's return to acting in four years. Segt in the 1920s Redford plays Roy Hobbs a naturally gifted baseball player who fashioned his bat from a tree that was struck by lightning on the night his father died. The bat is his Excalibur.On his way to Chicago for tryouts he is gunned down by a black widow like maniac who is killing the best in every sport. Sixteen years later Hobbs emerges as rookie for the New York Knights a team that is going nowhere and who shady owner wants the team to fail.Once Hobbs get the chance to play he becomes a natural hitter leading his team on a winning streak but his success brings hazards and again there is another woman out to derail him, bring him down and therefore the team.The Natural is a period drama beautifully photographed by Caleb Deschanel. It moves at a languid place accompanied by a memorable score from Randy Newman. The music and some of the baseball imagery has been much imitated since.It is a lyrical film about second chances, love and redemption. It is also about good and evil. The women represented by Barbara Hershey and Kim Basinger are evil city women wanting Hobbs downfall. Glenn Close who plays his old flame back at the farm is draped in white and is almost angelic giving Hobbs a lift whenever she turn up at the stadium.The film bristles with a great supporting cast. Joe Don Baker as The Whammer who is humiliated by the younger Hobbs. Robert Duvall who has never played ball but is on the lookout for a great story and believes he can make or break a player to protect the sport such is his cynicism. Darren McGavin is a shadowy gambler who is in league with Robert Prosky's Judge who wants the team to fail so he can get sole ownership from the coach played Wilfred Brimley. These are arrogant and corrupted men.Brimley and Richard Farnsworth are the pure heart of the sport, uncorrupted men who love the game.I first watched this film over 30 years ago and found it enchanting, a thoughtful film for all the family.This was director's Barry Levinson's introduction to the major league. A chance to work with a big star and bigger budget. I think Levinson feels a bit lost away from his personal Baltimore set films and this could be the reason why some find the film cheesy and the portrayal of the women in this film shallow.I think the decision to shoot Redford and Close as teenagers in dim light is a risky move that they just about kind of get away with. However when we see the older Hobbs we see Redford in his element. Like Hobbs in the intervening sixteen years, Redford keeps him mysterious, somehow distant which is typical of the actor who eschewed the method acting of displaying histrionics on screen. You leave that to others and just bounce of them.

Barry Levinson's The Natural is by far one of the best baseball movies of all time (second to Pride of the Yankees (1942)) not only because the story is so extraordinary but it also feels like you are an actual character which is in fact how great this movie really is. The movie stars Robert Redford as Roy Hobbs a man who loved baseball all his life and played when he was a kid until high-school and tries to play for the Chicago Cubs at the age of 22 but before that he meets a journalist named Max Mercy (played by Robert Duvall) and a man who is called "The Whammer" (played by Joe Don Baker) and practices pitching with them. After he is done with pitching he meets a woman named Harriet Bird (played by Barbara Hershey) who at first seem like friends but after a few days she almost kills Hobbs in her apartment with one gunshot but luckily Hobbs survives and has to wait until he is 38 years old and doesn't get signed on to the Chicago Cubs but instead gets signed on to the New York Knights where he meets two managers one who's name is Pop Fisher (played by Wilford Brimley) who isn't sure at first that Hobbs would do well at his age, and another man named Red Blow (played by Richard Farnsworth) who believes that Hobbs would succeed. The screenplay to this movie is just awe-inspiring, because not only does it tell a story of a great player it also tells an evil back-story because Hobbs is being betrayed and he knows it by three people, the Judge (played by Robert Prosky), Gus Sands (played by Darren McGavin), and a girl that Hobbs was flirting with for a short time named Memo (played by Kim Basinger).The actual best supporting performance in the film didn't only come from Brimley and Farnsworth but the most inspired performance came from Glenn Close as Iris Gaines who was Roy's true love and made Roy a true natural at baseball.Though I didn't read the novel I felt as if I did while watching the movie, which I felt like I was an actual audience member at one of Hobbs' baseball games which to me pretty much explains why i think that all movie lovers should see this wonderful movie that will stay with you for a long time.