Four Word Film Review

Starring Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Robert Wuhl and Trey Wilson as skipper Joe Reigels, Bull Durham is the story of two players heading in opposite directions on the Durham Bulls, a minor league baseball team in the Carolina League.

Kevin Costner is Crash Davis, a veteran catcher with about twelve years in professional baseball (most of it in the minor leagues) recently traded and then demoted from Triple-A baseball so that he can help mature the young hotshot fireball pitcher into a top big league commodity. Tim Robbins is the aforementioned talented pitcher Ebby Calvin Lalooche who has what might be described as "...a million dollar arm and a five cent head." We pick up the movie as he wins his first professional start, but is nonetheless perilously close to letting his talent and his attitude destroy a successful future.

Bull Durham is a classic baseball film in every sense of the word. Anyone who has ever been involved in the game can identify with one or more of the scenes found within. This is by no means a fluke. The screenplay (nominated for an Academy Award) is delivered by Ron Shelton, a former minor league ballplayer who brings a comedic and romantic twist to the relative obscurity of the minor leagues.

Criticized occasionally as being too "episodic", I find that such sentiments are misguided and completely eradicated by the fact that many of the scenes are complete gems. Examples include the mound conference in which hoaxes, jinxes and wedding plans are the topics of conversation rather than baseball and the memorable scene on the bus in which Crash teaches Ebby the value of the cliché in an interview.

My complaints about the film are few and far between. All the same, I have two. My first complaint is that the author draws from the same well twice when Crash intentionally tells the batter what is coming next in order to teach Ebby a lesson and that Susan Saradon's character is named Annie Savoy - a deliberate plagiarism from the name of the batboy (Bobby Savoy) in The Natural (1984).

Tim Robins a little too naked a little too often.

Regardless, Bull Durham remains my favourite baseball film (beating more popular candidates such as The Natural and Field of Dreams) for reasons that you just have to see to understand.