| 88 |
Chicago Sun-Times
It handles a sports movie the way Billie Holiday handled a trashy song, by finding the love and pain beneath the story.
|
| 80 |
Chicago Reader
After a slow setup, this charming fable wisely spends most of its time on the golf course.
|
| 80 |
Rolling Stone
Redford plays the game of filmmaking to reveal what he holds sacred: story, character, feeling, thoughtful pacing, and an alertness of nuances of honor and shame that most movies skip in the rush to the rush.
|
| 75 |
Boston Globe
It offers pleasures of a kind that fewer and fewer films even seem to remember, much less aspire to.
|
| 67 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Despite some engaging performances and good scenes, it's by far the least original, and least accomplished, of the six Redford-directed films.
|
| 63 |
Chicago Tribune
Though it's sweet and likable to a fault, it's also a movie that never seems heartfelt or deep.
|
| 63 |
Charlotte Observer
Your reaction will depend on your response to the title character, who's meant to be God or one of God's messengers.
|
| 63 |
New York Daily News
A temple of enlightenment posing as a movie.
|
| 63 |
San Francisco Examiner
As entertaining, charming and conceited as other Robert Redford joints, but it's also insufferably obvious.
|
| 63 |
USA Today
Molasses-paced fable.
|
| 60 |
TV Guide
Some brilliant human moments do emerge, and there's nothing wrong with a reminder to live life in harmony, and not to beat yourself up.
|
| 60 |
Los Angeles Times
So meticulous in its craftsmanship and so earnest in its storytelling that it feels both physically and spiritually airbrushed.
|
| 60 |
Village Voice
More mushy than mystical.
|
| 58 |
Entertainment Weekly
There's not a moment in Bagger Vance that can't be anticipated.
|
| 50 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
A knuckleheaded period piece.
|
| 50 |
Miami Herald
The lack of cynicism is refreshing, but someone needed to tell Redford pixie dust and a nine-iron will only get you so far.
|
| 50 |
Variety
A lightweight, modestly engaging yarn sporting reductive mystical and philosophical elements that are both valid and borderline silly.
|
| 50 |
Dallas Observer
If you love the excitement of watching golf, this Damon-Smith bore is right up your fairway.
|
| 50 |
Christian Science Monitor
The trouble lies in its stereotypical style, its schmaltzy emotionalism.
|
| 50 |
Film.com
The result is fantasy that wafts away.
|
| 50 |
Baltimore Sun
The Legend of Bagger Vance is nothing but "The Natural" with Will Smith playing the bat.
|
| 50 |
Salon.com
Redford glances too lightly off the story's racial questions. You could call that approach "eminently tasteful" if you're looking for a nice substitute for "wimpy."
|
| 50 |
New York Post
So slow the movie itself seems to be suffering from a hardening of the arteries.
|
| 50 |
Austin Chronicle
Stunning camera shots by ace Michael Ballhaus are lovely to look at, and the performances are all excellent.
|
| 50 |
San Francisco Chronicle
A pleasant myth.
|
| 48 |
Mr. Showbiz
Without full-bodied characters to play, Smith and Damon are left to get by on their native charm -- something both have in considerable quantity, thankfully.
|
| 42 |
Portland Oregonian
What it plays like is a trifling story strung out to great length without much narrative drive, tinged with some disturbing racial undertones.
|
| 40 |
TNT RoughCut
Middlebrow art has its built-in pitfalls, not the least of them sentimentality and intellectual flabbiness -- both of which are in abundant supply in Bagger Vance.
|
| 40 |
LA Weekly
Leven's tepid screenplay and the passionless self-control of Redford's direction make this bloodless movie a chore to sit through.
|
| 40 |
Time
The actors, especially the ever appealing Smith, do what they can to ground the movie in reality, but it stubbornly remains dawdling, remote and pretentious.
|
| 30 |
Film.com
The real problem is that it's not a very good Hollywood film, and its flaccid style, cardboard characters, and paint-by-the-numbers plot make watching it a chore.
|
| 30 |
Washington Post
This saved-by-an-angel story is redeemed mostly by Smith's comic instincts.
|
| 30 |
Washington Post
A slight, disingenuous script that robs the characters of their histories.
|
| 20 |
Slate
The movie is one dead, overcomposed scene after another.
|
| 10 |
The New York Times
Not only is it excruciatingly boring -- but its central premises are so banal and dubious as to border on offensiveness.
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