Bobby Jones - Stroke of Genius

Paul Martin, Saturday 1 May 2004

I went into this movie with high expectations for it. When I left, I found this film to be a bit lacking. Characters needed to be fleshed out more, the story was missing some key points. After Mary Malone's father is disappointed the Bobby Jones isn't Catholic, he finds out that this Bobby Jones is the golfer and that suddenly makes it alright. And suddenly there is a wedding. They never go into that dynamic at all. Why bring it up if there is no more to that part of the story? The secondary stories needed more, even though there are others they did well, more would have been good. James Horner did the music for this, and this one's score sounded a bit like Braveheart. The director should have put more music in more places of the picture, to help support the flow of the movie. It also could have used more suspence in the golf tournaments, and a bit of a faster pace there, to add to the suspence. Going into it with very little knowledge of golf lessened the overall enjoyment of the movie, and had they even had some type of scoreboard type thing, with even a brief explanation, it would have helped me to grasp the film's dramatic golf shots a bit more. The performances were good though.

6/10