User reviews

I really enjoyed watching this movie. It seems like the very embodiment of the Hollywood cliche - a noble hero overcoming difficulty to achieve his dream...but somehow, The Natural manages to pull it off in a very un-glamorized way. Take the hero - he's 35 years old! It just seems refreshing not to always have a dashing young fellow of twenty as the main character. And then - an ulcerated stomach? What kind of an obstacle is that? Not a Hollywood one, I'll tell you that. This hero is actually believable - and Robert Redford plays him handsomely. He makes Roy Hobbs a real person, and a gentleman. I recommend The Natural for any Robert Redford fan, baseball fan - and anyone who just wants to see a neat, entertaining movie with a main character you can really root for.

This is another one that I recently re-watched on cable. I must upgrade my collection to include the DVD. Of course, there are reviews which will attack its sentimentality; get over it!! It amazes me that so many film goers can't view a movie with a positive and sophisticated charm without rolling their eyes or sticking their finger down their throat. (As if we don't have enough coarse, angry, 'edgy' films in release already.) I don't mind Redford's Joe Hardy-like ability one bit, because success- for all of his skill and talent- still doesn't come to him easily. He must suffer a physical tragedy, be elusive with his greedy contemporaries, and finally deal with the past, which he spends the entire movie trying to hide. The one nitpick I have with the whole film was the painfully obvious soft-focus photography used to disguise Redford's age. It isn't so bad in the first reel when he's supposed to be a teenager (and the camera shoots him in silhouette and at length), but later, when he's supposed to be between 36 and, say 40, he just *isn't*. Glenn Close is radiant as his love from childhood, and shines in a memorable scene when they are first reunited at one of his games. After he goes into a foreshadowed slump, it is the arrival of Close (angelically back lit, and whose presence he senses even before seeing her) that brings him back to winning. Singularly gorgeous.

Whenever "The Natural" is on TV, I stop what I'm doing and watch it. I don't know why, exactly. I have been a baseball fan since I was a little kid and love the tradition. There is no other sport that has as much history. It's because one can isolate moments in time. Situations develop. Every announcer says things like, "Bottom of the third, men on first and third, Turley on the mound, Simpson is up, he's two for four today. The wind is blowing out to right field, etc." We can make words visual. In this wonderful movie, a man wants a piece of that tradition. He makes a horrible mistake along the way to the big leagues, and now is given one last chance. This is mythical. This is not realistic. To criticize it on the basis of its credibility is unfair. Even to compare it to the book is unfair. They are totally different. What one does with a camera should not be compared to the printed page. Malamud did his thing and now Barry Levinson is doing his. The cinematography is without peer. It is magical all the way through. The lighting as Glenn Close stands up in the stands is mesmerizing. This is more Greek myth than baseball story, but it is a baseball story, with the Ruth like gods and the day-to-day players. Roy Hobbs is like all of us in some ways and we love him for his endurance, patience, and drive. Redford brings him to life with that rugged face moving away from lost youth. It's a fine film.

A wonderful, magical fairy tale, and morality play. This is the type of movie that as a new father, I cannot wait until my son is old enough to watch this with me.

I know much has been made about Redford being too old to play Roy Hobbs. But much of the story asks you to believe in incredible things, so to me, this is a minor issue.

Everything about this movie is first rate. The cast which includes Redford, Glenn Close, Kim Basinger, Wilford Brimley and a pair of terrific performances turned in by Robert Duval and Darren McGavin.

It is easy to see that all of the actors trust the material and believe in their characters.

Barry Levinson tells the story in a straight forward style, he doesn't try to build any false suspense or surprise twists. When you watch this movie you know exactly what is going to happen long before it does, but you don't care, because it unfolds intelligently and without pretense.

My two favorite components of this movie are the cinematography by Caleb Deschanel and the beautiful, moving score composed by Randy Newman. I first enjoyed Mr. Deschanel's work on "Being There", and felt Mr. Newman's score for "Ragtime" was the best score of 1981.

"The Natural" is so much more than a baseball movie. It is a story about faith, good and evil, right and wrong, fathers and sons. It is about all that is good in baseball and in life.

10 out of 10

My son and I have watched this movie twice together. I can't think of any other movie we have watched twice--together. I'm 60 and my son is 26. There is the element of magic, of fairy-tale, of other-worldliness; there is the element of the naturalness, the character of Robert Redford; there is the element of baseball, the great sport-love of millions of boys in North America--and me back in the 1950s when I was growing up and dreamed of going to the majors; there's a touch of the sexual with Kim Basinger and Barbara Hershey----one could go on listing the pluses that this movie brings to the viewers. But I think what makes the movie in the end is the magic of Roy Hobbs as he hits a baseball further and harder than anyone ever has or(probably) ever will. Hobbs is the quintessence of the baseball hero and for sports lovers that's their religion. Hobbs is like Jesus come down to earth in the form of a baseball player, yet with sins of omission and commission. So, he's human and a superhero all at once.

This is THE classic sports-Walter Mitty-fantasy movie, with an ending that may seem corny to cynical critics or those who prefer the book, but was perfect for me and a lot of other people.

Granted, I am a little biased in my review since the movie was made in the area in which grew up. Having made many trips to the ballpark in which the movie was filmed, and to the old-fashioned soda shoppe where Robert Redford and Glenn Close re-unite, this movie was special to all of us in Western New York. It always a kick, too, (and a bit odd) to watch the final scene since the opposing pitcher is a personal friend.

I think I would have loved this movie regardless of the "home-field advantage." It's an interesting, involving story that has you really rooting for Redford's character. To have actors like Close, Robert Duvall, Richard Farnsworth, Kim Basinger, Wilfred Brimley, Darren McGavin, Barabara Hershey, Robert Prosky, Joe Don Baker and others in the "lineup" doesn't hurt, either!

The cinematography is beautiful, too. That was something I never really appreciated until after several viewings. There are some wonderfully subdued brown and golden hues in here. This is very pretty motion picture.

All the characters - the good and the bad, and there are plenty of both - are fascinating. It's also nice to see an actor in a baseball film that actually knows how to throw, hit and field a baseball. This is a great, old-fashioned storytelling.

Incredibly natural baseball player Robert Redford (as Roy Hobbs) grows up to be a 1920s teenager on the verge of playing in the big leagues. Then, he is derailed… Sixteen years later, Mr. Redford attempts to re-enter his field of dreams. As a middle-aged rookie, Redford is immediately benched - but, you should never write Redford off… "The Natural" is an excellent fantasy - one you can believe within the confines of its running time. As both a baseball player and a movie star, Redford rises to the occasion. For the film, he gets extraordinary production values - skillfully led by director Barry Levinson and cinematographer Caleb Deschanel. For the character, Redford gets magical powers from a lightning strike - courtesy of writer Bernard Malamud and mythology.

******* The Natural (5/11/84) Barry Levinson ~ Robert Redford, Robert Duvall, Glenn Close, Kim Basinger

Despite being an Englishman I played Fast Pitch Softball against USA Service teams over many years so understand Baseball. This is a sports movie constructed in a marvelously entertaining manner fulfilling my boyhood dreams. Redford might be old for the role but I found him both believable and committed to giving enjoyment. Great cast, lovely music, super performances, brilliant fairytale story and a real feel good experience.

I've been on kind of a baseball kick lately, and obviously, "The Natural" is going to come up. And it's a good movie, boasting some veteran talent both behind and in front of the camera. The funny thing is that it's not really about baseball, same as boxing is just a storytelling vehicle for "Raging Bull" and "Million Dollar Baby". This is really an allegory of good and evil, of honorable men and the forces that would smother them; the symbolism's painted all over the walls in this place.

When I read Malamud's book a few years ago, I was blown away by the ending, one that really underlines the novel's bitterness; and that finish has no place in this film. Even still, while you know who to root for and who to despise, there are still aspects that really need to be fleshed out; Robert Duvall's character, in particular.

But I'm not out to poke holes. This movie is memorable not just for the acting or Randy Newman's main theme, but for its fondness for the period. You watch this for the sun-kissed cinematography and those crucial moments when fate (t last) steps in to level the playing field.

Pacing issues aside, it's a movie everyone needs to see at least once.

7/10

As a writer, I am often compelled to read the books on which my favorite movies are based. Since its original release, I have loved The Natural as one of my favorite movies of all time, but it was only recently that I read Bernard Malamud's novel on which the movie was based. I cannot tell you how disappointed I was.

Malamud was a great writer, and was best known for winning a Pulitzer and the National Book award for The Fixer. His award winning work usually dealt with themes closer to his own heart, and Malamud didn't seem to "get" baseball in this book. Either that, or he had some axe to grind about baseball, and wanted us to hate it and all the people involved in it.

The Natural was Malamud's first novel and, as such, it suffers from shallow, simplistic characters, a muddy, at times almost unintelligible plot, and poorly attenuated subplots that almost seem like afterthoughts or clumsy devices slathered on to shore up weak story objectives. He does, however, have a historical understanding of baseball, and most of the events related to baseball in this story are composites of everything from the Black Sox to Babe Ruth to Christie Matheson and a string of other legends.

The main character, Roy Hobbs, is almost certainly based on the real life character Eddie Waitkus, and Malamud does little to imbue him with likable traits that would deepen him as a literary character. He even throws in a little Joe Jackson to compromise the character even further. The fact that he is called "Roy" is an obvious allusion to Sir Thomas Malory's 15th century opus "Le Morte D'Arthur." (Recall that "roi" is French for "king.") Why Malamud chose this story as a model is a mystery, since although he goes to great lengths to reinforce the Aurthurian connection (the baseball team is called the "Knights", the bat, "Wonderboy" is obviously "Excalibur"), he creates little of the Arthurian heroism in Roy Hobbes, or, for that matter, the sport of baseball as an allegory for the jousting of Chivalric heroes.

The character of The Whammer, played in the movie beautifully, if all too briefly, by Joe Don Baker, is more Ruth than Ruth, but he's gone in a flash, leaving yet another heroic void in the original story. And the women in The Natural are shallow, conniving and cheap and I have never been able to understand Malamud's literary allusions with regard to Morgan LeFave and Guinnevere, the women in Arthur's life. The Bad Guys in the book are ALL Bad, everyone else is mostly neutral, and there isn't any real good, or anything uplifting or affirming or positive in the whole thing.

Thank god for the movie. Barry Levinson's direction is gilded and glowing, and the whole film has a luminous aura that seems magical and enchanted and, compared to the wooden novel from which it came, a satisfying recast of the Arthurian legend. The screenplay was done by Roger Towne, who recently gave us The Recruit, and the changes he made to the story make all the difference in the world; less literary, perhaps, but more beautiful and elegant and not nearly so cynical and pessimistic. Compared to the Levinson/Johnson magic, the novel is almost amateurish, and recalls Ayn Rand's facile characters and stories, didactic and pedantic, and almost completely obscuring the Arthurian magic that Levinson coaxes from the story.

Once, when I had the chance to mention personally to Mark Johnson how beautiful The Natural was, he responded with a sincere modesty that fit the innocent tone of the movie, and he even gave me a keepsake from the film that I have to this day as a reminder of just how amazing an achievement this movie was, coming from so flawed a novel.

This was the first movie in which I loved Redford. He was older and deeper as an actor, and this was the beginning of his real golden age. Glenn Close was delightfully virginal and beautiful as a character almost completely created by the screenwriter, not the novelist. Kim Basinger is gorgeous and dangerous as the femme fatal, a portrayal that she would echo in her Oscar winning turn in L.A. Confidential.

Randy Newman's brilliant score was recycled a dozen times in subsequent movies, but none captured the beauty and nostalgia of The Natural. There are only a handful of movies so magnificently driven by their score, and The Natural remains Newman's best and most satisfying work.

In short, this is the best baseball movie ever. Whereas Malamud wanted to show baseball as jaundiced and commercial, Towne's screenplay shows us the baseball we loved as kids, and more. Malamud's dark and wholly unsatisfying ending is also rewritten, and if you find the final scene a little sweet, ask yourself if you really wanted to see the dismal finale that Malamud supplied.

I'm not a real baseball or sports fan. I did like this movie though. I think just about any movie starring Robert Redford will at least be OK. This movie is no exception.

The film is kind of melodramatic though. It seems like every scene there is a woman dressed in black poisoning Redford. Or there is a woman in white inspiring him to hit the ball out of the park. And speaking of which, there are probably half a dozen scenes where Redford is down two balls and he hits it out of the park.

Putting that aside, the movie still has a lot to offer. The acting (besides Bassinger) is very well done. We also have Duvall, Brimley, Prosky, and Farnesworth giving stellar performances. This is probably the best part of the film, with a close second being the cinematography. All the shots are great eye candy. The glare of the sun, the farmland, the fields (with great color composition). This is really something to see.

The Natural is not a baseball movie. It's a fable, a fairy tale, a fantasy which just happens to be centered around a baseball player. It probably would have been better as a baseball movie. The movie drowns in sentimentality, few movies have ever laid it on as thick as this one does with its portrayal of the godlike Roy Hobbs. Roy's a mythical superhero. At least that's the effect the movie's going for. Unfortunately this superhero is a complete idiot. All he cares about is baseball and his vain quest to be the best there ever was. Unfortunately his quest is derailed before it ever gets a chance to properly begin. But when years later he somehow gets a second chance he screws it up all over again by making the same exact mistakes he made the first time. Here's a helpful hint for the audience in case you can't figure it out, because Roy sure can't. Woman dressed in black...bad. Woman dressed in white...good. Yes, this is one simplistic fairy tale all right.

Aside from all the sentimental overload the movie's other big problem is Robert Redford. Not because Redford gives a bad performance as Roy Hobbs, because he doesn't, but for the simple fact that he is much, much, much too old to believably play the part. Yes the story is about an old man, at least in baseball terms. But not that old. Redford was pushing fifty when he made this movie. He just doesn't look the part as the 35-year old Hobbs we see for most of the movie. And at the start of the movie, when Redford plays Hobbs at the age of nineteen? All the favorable lighting and makeup in the world wasn't going to prevent that from looking truly absurd. It's hard to buy into the movie when the great baseball star looks like your grandpa. For comparison's sake a key role, that of old, cantankerous manager Pop, is played by Wilford Brimley. Brimley is a mere two years older than Redford.

So Redford's casting is a problem. The fact that this supposed baseball movie features some truly ridiculous baseball action doesn't help either. Roy Hobbs joins a terrible team. To show you just how terrible the team is the filmmakers resort to comic baseball, players getting hit in the groin and such. Not funny, not at all. If you want to take this seriously as a baseball movie you're in trouble. There's really nothing believable about the baseball sequences. But if it doesn't work as a baseball movie maybe it at least works as a fable? Not really. The movie beats you over the head with the Roy Hobbs as god stuff but it never really rings true. The fact he's such a dunce surely doesn't help. When a woman from Roy's past shows up she has a secret for him. But she doesn't come right out and say it, she only hints at it. But anybody could figure it out. Anybody except dear old Roy. He doesn't get it. He never seems to get it, no matter what "it" is, unless it's hitting a baseball. That he can do and with remarkable precision, able to hit faraway objects and make them explode whenever the mood strikes him. The character of Roy Hobbs never really works and thus the movie never really works. Redford's acting is fine even if he never looks the part. Many other performers, most notably Robert Duvall and Glenn Close are really wasted, not given enough to do in this totally Roy Hobbs-centered movie. Kim Basinger has a bit more substantial part to play but doesn't really do all that well with it. The film has a great look and sound to it, with beautiful cinematography and a wonderful Randy Newman score. But the story lets the movie down. It's a fable which falls flat, not particularly believable and often, as the movie drags along, not particularly interesting or entertaining. This baseball movie leaves you longing for a real baseball movie.

I can't ever forget the first time(s) I saw The Natural. I was a member of the Directors Guild of America and there was a screening at the DGA. I love screenings of films about which I know nothing! And at the time I hadn't read the novel, really didn't know anything about it. I knew Barry Levinson and liked his work, and Randy Newman was, of course, a god. I just wasn't ready for it! Tears were streaming down my face from the beginning. The music would play and the waterworks would commence! It felt organic, not intellectual. It just "was". The only other film where I had that experience was, you guessed it, "Field of Dreams", another screening. When he asked his Dad if they could play a little catch, I lost it. The people I was with got up and slowly moved to other seats. But back to the Natch. I love it when a film subsumes reality, and every time I hear the theme at a "real" ball game, I smile. From time to time I'll put on the DVD to watch a scene, and I invariably end up watching the whole thing! If you haven't seen this film, you simply must!

One of my all time favorites. Everything about this movie appears authentic. From the time period, to the baseball scenes. These guys really look like a baseball team.

Redford is low-key and stoic, but he hits just the right note for the character. Everybody else, especially Robert Duvall and Wilford Brimley, are fantastic.

A touching story, without being hokey. You get the feeling you are watching something mystical and magical along with all the characters in the movie, and it is played with just the right note.

Thrilling and inspiring. A well-made, well-acted film.

An excellent example of the "Hollywood-ization" of a work taken from another medium. As mentioned in other comments, the cinematography and historical realism are both top-notch. The storyline takes on mythic proportions though choosing a one-dimensional good v evil, corruption v purity theme rather than exploring the multi-dimensional and in my opinion, more realistic and human themes prevalent in Malamud's novel. Hobbs here is the straight-up American Golden Boy, played to the hilt by Redford, and ably supported by Duvall, Basinger, Close, Brimley, et al in archetypal characters (atavistic sportswriter, temptress, pure old-fashioned girl, crusty manager). Enjoyable to watch, if only for the nod to the "good old days" of baseball when players were larger than life yet also more accessible to the common fan.

Baseball is a sport in which it is everyone's favorite sport. But in The Natural, baseball will never be the same. The Natural is a wonderful and great movie that fills the screen with extreme joy and magic. The movie takes place in 1939 where a youngster named Roy Hobbs, played by Robert Redford, makes his way through the major league baseball team. But hold on a minute, that is just the story. The Natural begins with the young Roy as a boy playing ball with his father. But after a while, his father passes away and one night, a thunderstorm's lighting bolt split a tree in half. The young Roy then make the wood from the tree into a baseball. He also etches a name of his bat. "Wonderboy" is what he called the bat. Soon enough, the bat gives the magic touches to Roy. One day, while playing a baseball game, he hits the baseball and the ball goes flying flying into a glass clock, shattering it into pieces. Another time, he hits another baseball and that baseball and the inside of the ball came out. Knowing that he is the best, Roy faces problems in his life including a manager called The Judge, played by Robert Prosky. His job is to bring Hobbs down. Roy doesn't stand a chance to the Judge's actions, knowing that Roy is just the person he is. An baseball hero. The Natural have great performances by Redford, Glenn Close and Wilford Brimely. The Natural is one of the best films of 1984. ★★★★ 4 stars.

"The Natural" is a strange move by any sense of the imagination. One minute, it can be as serious as any movie ever made. The next minute, an outfielder crashes through the wall, dies, and has his ashes spread over the field in a later game. Despite the oddities that pop up here and there, though, "The Natural" remains a classic for one simple reason: it will move you emotionally in the end.

For a basic plot summary, "The Natural" tells the story of Roy Hobbs (Robert Redford), a young pitcher who seems to have the world on a string on his way to the major leagues. When a freak accident takes him out of the game for many years, though, he comes back a wily, grizzled veteran just hoping for another chance. He gets that chance with the Knights, coached by Pop Fisher (Wilford Brimley). While figures such as the team owner (Robert Prosky) and prominent sports writer Max Mercy (Robert Duvall) want to see him fail, Hobbs shows the type of perseverance that legends are made of.

Like I said in the opening, "The Natural" can be a really strange movie at times. It's almost like director Barry Levinson doesn't quite understand how strange his dramatic tone shifts were as the film rolls along. While some view this as quirky and giving the movie its own style, I see it as a negative (the only reason it doesn't get my full five stars and vault into "Field of Dreams" territory).

That being said, "The Natural" does more than enough things right to still remain a classic movie. Certain sequences (striking out The Whammer (Joe Don Baker), "pick me out a winner, Bobby", etc.) are now etched into iconic film & baseball lore. Then, of course, there is that ending. I don't care how cheesy you might have thought the movie up until that point was, but if that final scene doesn't move you to tears, you probably have a stone in place of a heart. When it comes to "greatest single scene in a baseball movie of all-time", Hobbs' final at-bat probably takes home the prize.

One must also comment on the music of "The Natural", as that is part of the reason why it resonates on such an emotional level. I don't think I could name too many soundtracks that top this one. The main theme is now a mainstay, and it seems like all the scenes in the film are backed by the perfect instrumentals.

Overall, "The Natural" is a slice of "baseball Americana", if not a perfect one. There are moments that will probably make you shake your head out of weirdness, but more often than not you will find yourself falling for Roy Hobbs and his quest for the American dream...baseball style.

And I've been a baseball fan my whole life of 74 years from the time I was putting empty beer bottles away under the bleachers of Hi Corbett Field in my hometown of Tucson, Arizona at age 10. This was when the Cleveland INDIANS (true name) still had their spring trading there before they had to join the fad and move with everyone else to Florida.... Great movie with build-up of plot to exciting nail-biting conclusion and plenty of baseball action. Will not disappoint! Connects the characters in logical ways; the manager and asst manager of the fictional major league team- the Knights- that Redford tries to break into are played magnificently by the 2 old actors. They are instantly recognizable from other movies and their names are as well from the movie credits.

I'll probably make myself unpopular here, as the consensus seems to be that this is a great movie. I found it enjoyable, but ultimately disappointing.

I read the novel many years ago (around the time the movie first came out) and resisted seeing the movie because the novel did almost nothing for me. I was persuaded to see the movie on the grounds that it is in fact not true to the book. I agree that the movie is an improvement on the book in many ways, not least because it lacks pretension.

The Natural movie certainly held my attention for the 2+ hours and is homely entertainment, Hollywood style. However, the characters are terribly two-dimensional and the ending "ball by ball" predictable - even to a Limey baseball greenhorn like myself.

If you want a couple of hours of pacey family entertainment, watch and enjoy. If you want to see a truly great or classic movie, personally I would recommend that you look elsewhere.

A couple of notes here;

1) it's about all white 1930s/1940s baseball;

2) it takes a cynical view of owners, gamblers and organized baseball in this time period;

3) it suggests that Redford's first go-round might have been short-circuited by design as well.

Having said all that, and wish as I might that they would do a film about Josh Gibson or Oscar Charleston, who were real, Roy Hobbs is very Entertaining in this film, and he is moral, ethical and principled in his quest to win the pennant for the NY Knights, who really are the NY Giants.

A great film that I've rewatched many, many times.

Robert Redford plays Roy Hobbs, a natural baseball all-star who is tragically (and unexpectedly) gunned down before reaching the majors. Sixteen years later, Hobbs returns from obscurity to try his hand at baseball again. Also starring Bob Duvall, Wilford Brimley, Glenn Close and Kim Basinger. With very special guest Michael Madsen.

Overall, the movie was watchable and fun, especially if you like baseball. But other than the twist in the first fifteen minutes, the film has nothing to offer you won't find in every other baseball movie. Just a different cast (with all due respect to Redford).

The emotional angle was weak, with the part of Memo being overplayed and unbelievable (and hard to interpret). Meanwhile, the connection with Glenn Close is never made clear until too late, at which point the idea is wasted.

The real star of this movie is Bob Duvall, who follows Redford around and writes newspaper stories on him. For some odd reason, he can't recall meeting Hobbs those 16 years ago, but this doesn't stop him from digging up a good story.

Michael Madsen makes an appearance and I want to believe this is one of his first roles. His acting is awful, and you can tell that between lines he is trying too hard to get into character. Whereas in "Reservoir Dogs" he looked natural and calm, here he looks like he'd be more comfortable in a high school musical.

This movie is alright, but steadily declines after the first half. You can go ahead and watch it, but don't call me over to join you.