Bull Durham

Starring: Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins
Directed by: Ron Shelton
Rating: R
Genre: Sports, Comedy
Box Office: $50,888,729
1988

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A baseball-loving woman (Susan Sarandon) continues her tradition of latching on to one promising minor league ballplayer each season and working with him to expand his horizons (on several levels). This season, she chooses an inexperienced yet talented young player (Tim Robbins). This complicates matters when she falls for an experienced minor league catcher (Kevin Costner) who joins the team. The trio learn about love, baseball, and life over the course of the season.

Review:

Tim: Bull Durham is one of the best baseball movies of all time. This is not a disputable fact. It's the unarguable truth. Strangely enough, the film isn't even about the major leagues. It focuses instead on a minor league team in North Carolina. However, amazingly, the film is actually better for it. The ball games are more pure and the players play because they love the game, not for paychecks and super-stardom. Love of the game- that's the only real reason to watch a baseball movie.

I really liked how the film shows the audience what Costner and Robbins are thinking while they play ball. It's fascinating to get into the head of a pitcher and a catcher. These scenes make for some of the most memorable and interesting to watch.

The cast of the film is quite good. Kevin Costner is amazingly cool in this movie. He might not make the most realistic baseball player, but in this film he (and his character) are downright terrific and great fun to watch. Susan Sarandon (of whom I've never been a big fan) is trampy and only decent on screen. I understand her character is an English teacher or something, but her performance makes us focus on only one (slightly unfavorable) aspect of her character. Tim Robbins is a great pair to Costner. For all Costner's experience and fortitude, Robbins is the opposite- naive, inexperienced, and mistake-prone. Some of the funniest scenes are when Costner decides to teach Robbins a lesson and tells the batter which pitch is coming next. Costner and Robbins light up the screen together.

Costner's speech in the film is the most magical moment of the film and is worth repeating here- "Well, I believe in the soul, the c***, the p****, the small of a woman's back, the hanging curve ball, high fiber, good scotch, that the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap. I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter. I believe in the sweet spot, soft-core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days." Costner delivers this speech about as incredibly as an actor can.

Bull Durham is a great baseball movie, if not the best. It is definitely a late 80s flick, but that doesn't matter at all. It is incredibly enjoyable.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 8



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: The Rookie, Field of Dreams, For Love of the Game