Legend of Bagger Vance, The

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

It handles a sports movie the way Billie Holiday handled a trashy song, by finding the love and pain beneath the story.

Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector

After a slow setup, this charming fable wisely spends most of its time on the golf course.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

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.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

It offers pleasures of a kind that fewer and fewer films even seem to remember, much less aspire to.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Despite some engaging performances and good scenes, it's by far the least original, and least accomplished, of the six Redford-directed films.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Though it's sweet and likable to a fault, it's also a movie that never seems heartfelt or deep.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Your reaction will depend on your response to the title character, who's meant to be God or one of God's messengers.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

A temple of enlightenment posing as a movie.

San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris

As entertaining, charming and conceited as other Robert Redford joints, but it's also insufferably obvious.

USA Today Susan Wloszczyna

Molasses-paced fable.

TV Guide Frank Lovece

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.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

So meticulous in its craftsmanship and so earnest in its storytelling that it feels both physically and spiritually airbrushed.

Village Voice Amy Taubin

More mushy than mystical.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

There's not a moment in Bagger Vance that can't be anticipated.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

A knuckleheaded period piece.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

The lack of cynicism is refreshing, but someone needed to tell Redford pixie dust and a nine-iron will only get you so far.

Variety Todd McCarthy

A lightweight, modestly engaging yarn sporting reductive mystical and philosophical elements that are both valid and borderline silly.

Dallas Observer Gregory Weinkauf

If you love the excitement of watching golf, this Damon-Smith bore is right up your fairway.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

The trouble lies in its stereotypical style, its schmaltzy emotionalism.

Film.com Robert Horton

The result is fantasy that wafts away.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

The Legend of Bagger Vance is nothing but "The Natural" with Will Smith playing the bat.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

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."

New York Post Lou Lumenick

So slow the movie itself seems to be suffering from a hardening of the arteries.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Stunning camera shots by ace Michael Ballhaus are lovely to look at, and the performances are all excellent.

San Francisco Chronicle Bob Graham

A pleasant myth.

Mr. Showbiz Cody Clark

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.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

What it plays like is a trifling story strung out to great length without much narrative drive, tinged with some disturbing racial undertones.

TNT RoughCut Andy Klein

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.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Leven's tepid screenplay and the passionless self-control of Redford's direction make this bloodless movie a chore to sit through.

Time Richard Schickel

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.

Film.com Peter Brunette

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.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

This saved-by-an-angel story is redeemed mostly by Smith's comic instincts.

Washington Post Rita Kempley

A slight, disingenuous script that robs the characters of their histories.

Slate David Edelstein

The movie is one dead, overcomposed scene after another.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

Not only is it excruciatingly boring -- but its central premises are so banal and dubious as to border on offensiveness.