"The Legend of Bagger Vance" is a golf film which is best when it's not a golf film. Let me explain. U an not a golfer nor do I care about golf. Yet, it manages to be more...mostly due to some unusual plot elements and a really deft job of direction combined with great music and cinematography. As a whole, it's a lovely film and non-golfers still have quite a bit to enjoy.

Rannulph Junuh (Matt Damon) was a great up and coming golfer before WWI. But during the war, he saw action and it really screwed him up....and today they'd say he was suffering from a bad case of PTSD. Instead of returning home to Savannah following the war, he just disappeared for quite a few years...only to eventually return with little fanfare. In the process, he walked out on a lovely woman that loved him (Charlize Theron) and a seemingly good life.

Now, about 15 years after the war*, Junah's old girlfriend is in trouble financially. The Depression is in full force and her late father sank all their money into a golf course...which likely will fail now that money is so tight. But instead of giving up, Adele comes up with an idea....to host a golf exhibition between two of the greats of the day, Bobby Jones and Walter Hagan. However, the plan is soon amended when it's suggested that a local golfer also be in his exhibition and Junah is convinced to compete...though he hasn't played golf in many years. Into this situation comes Bagger Vance (Will Smith),an angelic sort of caddy who seems to have some sort of foreknowledge about Junah and the competition.

Much of the film consists of this golf exhibition...and that didn't interest me that much. You had a strong idea how it would go so there wasn't a ton of suspense here. HOWEVER, it was handled so artistically and lovingly that it worked far better tthan it should have.

I also appreciated some of the metaphoric elements of the story (apart from the name Rannulph Junah) and the very end was lovely and poetic. Although he received no billing, this was a lovely final screen performance for Jack Lemmon.

Overall, it's a great example of a film whose whole is gorgeous...like a work of art. But the parts, if you focus too much on them, might just distract you from this whole if you allow it. Well worth seeing.

What I really liked about The Legend Of Bagger Vance is the great care that director Robert Redford did in evoking the feel and ambiance of Savannah, Georgia in the Great Depression. I really did feel like I was back in that time watching this story about a match between the greatest golfers of their era, Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen. A match where a local man, Matt Damon gave the greats a run for their money.

Harve Presnell one of Savannah's leading citizens has invested everything in the development of a new golf course and when stock market crashed he loses everything and takes his own life. Staving off her father's creditors Charlize Theron vows that this course will open and will feature a match between the two best of their time Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen. However for a little local rooting interest the townsfolk insist on a local player in with the big guys.

Said local player is Matt Damon who went to war in 1917 and came out bitter, disillusioned and drunk. Back in the day people in Savannah thought Damon might have a future in professional golf then really at its beginning. But he hasn't swung a club in a decade.

This entire story is seen through the eyes of young J. Michael Moncrief who in time grows up to be Jack Lemmon who appears at the beginning and end of the film in his farewell role. Lemmon also provides the narration for The Legend Of Bagger Vance.

Damon eventually accepts, but it's only when Will Smith comes along playing the title role as a most mysterious man who offers to be his caddy that Damon plays. Smith imparts some real life lessons that both Damon and young Moncrief take in.

Other than Will Smith the only time you see any black people in the film is when Damon is discovered, living reclusively, drinking heavily and in a poker game with several black people. In segregated Savannah of the Twenties while you see a genteel version of the South it still has its racist mores and only Damon and Moncrief break them. The only black face you see in the crowds at the celebrated match is Will Smith's.

Joel Gretsch as Bobby Jones and Bruce McGill as Walter Hagen exactly fit the conception I had of both Jones and Hagen. They were as different as baseball legends Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. Hagen was a cheerful hedonist who was quoted as saying he didn't want to be a millionaire just live like one. Jones was the epitome of clean living and good sportsmanship. Among those covering the match was Grantland Rice played here by Lane Smith in his farewell role.

How the match comes out is for you to watch the film for. But some life lessons are learned by all the players.

The story is told by Hardy Greaves who growing up in Savannah, Georgia as a child idolized golfer Rannulph Junah (Matt Damon). Rannulph had married wealthy Adele Invergordon (Charlize Theron). However he returns from WWI broken and disappears. Adele moves on with her father's business to build a golf course in 1928. She finds Rannulph return to town but a year later, the great depression hit. The golf course is complete but the financial strain drive Adele's father to suicide. Adele struggles to keep the golf course open by organizing an exhibition between Bobby Jone (Joel Gretsch) and Walter Hagen (Bruce McGill) for a prize of $10k. In a town meeting, people demand for a local golfer but the drunken Captain Junah is reluctant to play. While trying to get back his swing late one night, Bagger Vance (Will Smith) asks for a job to caddy for the big game.

It takes a bit of exposition to get started. Charlize Theron and Matt Damon starts off with an interesting period piece. Then Will Smith comes in and it slowly becomes obvious that this is some kind of Magical Negro that he's playing. This is apparently a fable where racism is not much mentioned nor noticed. It demands that the viewer forget any historical realism since this is a fable after all.

The best thing about this is that Robert Redford has made a beautiful looking movie. It is however slow moving, and lacks the needed energy to keep up the pace for the whole 2 hours. My biggest problem is that the fable needs much more magic especially visually. Redford does a lot of speeding up the clouds and clouds rolling by and shots of nature and shots of sky and various other in-camera moves to denote magic. It needs something more. It needs something much more. It needs to put this movie definitively into the magical territories. This is not the simple period piece that Redford is creating. (small unimportant spoiler: even the last scene is too uncertain. Bagger Vance is waving old Hardy Greaves over. Redford really needs to spell out what's going on there.)

The acting seems fine to me. Matt Damon and Charlize Theron have some nice scenes together. They have the best fun and I enjoy them the most. I'm not able to tell if the accents are accurate but I don't think it's so obvious that it would offend anybody other than southerners. Will Smith is playing someone unreal. He is almost otherworldly. If this isn't a fable, I'm tempted to say that he's playing it too fake. In the end, it's an uneven viewing experience.