TIN CUP
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1996 Scott Renshaw
TIN CUP Starring: Kevin Costner, Rene Russo, Don Johnson, Cheech Marin. Screenplay: Ron Shelton, John Norville. Director: Ron Shelton. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
Ron Shelton appears to understand two things better than any other contemporary film-maker: sports, and Kevin Costner. Put a sports movie in the hands of almost any other director, and you get the feeling that they're just biding their time until the big climactic game/fight/match; put Kevin Costner in the hands of almost any other director, and you find the thin-voiced actor placed in the uncomfortable position of playing commanding and heroic. When the two men joined forced previously, for 1988's BULL DURHAM, the result was one of the best and funniest sports films ever, and probably Costner's best performance ever. That casually charming Costner is re-born in TIN CUP, yet another superior Shelton sports film overflowing with pleasures.
Costner plays Roy "Tin Cup" McAvoy, a one-time college golf star now reduced to operating a run-down driving range in the west Texas town of Salome. He also gives lessons, and one of his students is Dr. Molly Griswold (Rene Russo), a therapist newly arrived in Salome who immediately captures Roy's fancy. Unfortunately, Molly is already involved with David Simms (Don Johnson), a tour pro who used to be Ray's college team-mate and now is his rival. Roy is determined to win Molly over by playing in the U. S. Open, but first he needs to overcome the quality which sunk his professional prospects, his insistence on going for the impossible shot rather than playing the percentages. For that he will require someone to help him with his "head game," and the only therapist in town happens to be Molly.
There are a lot of Kevin Costner bashers out there -- I have been known to be one of them -- who have forgotten that he became a star in films like BULL DURHAM and FIELD OF DREAMS which allowed him to be warm, funny and approachable. That is too bad, but it happened because Costner himself and plenty of other directors forgot, too. They keep trying to turn him into an icon -- witness ROBIN HOOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES, JFK, WYATT EARP and WATERWORLD -- and he generally winds up looking sour and constipated throughout. TIN CUP is a reminder of Costner at his best, boyishly handsome and with an equally boyish temperament, and he has so much effortless fun playing Roy that it is nearly impossible not to have fun with him. He is like a Little League player who never out-grew Little League, always swinging for the fences and always eager to please. Costner manages to make immaturity incredibly endearing.
Shelton has given Costner a great character to work with, and has fashioned a great story around that character. BULL DURHAM was so authentic in its detail about minor league baseball that it was easy to overlook the fact that Shelton made a film that wasn't just about baseball. It was about playing a game because you loved it so much you couldn't imagine doing anything else, and the frustration of seeing a player with less love (Tim Robbins' Nuke LaLoosh) have so much more talent. This time, Costner gets to play the equivalent of Nuke, a player with "a million dollar arm and a fifty cent head," in a story that is not just about golf. Roy's problem is that he understands all too well that fans don't watch professional sports to see the steady hitter, the guy who runs the precise receiving route, or the guy who can make all his free throws; they watch to see the home run hitter, the flashy runner, or the 360 degree dunk. Roy could never be the steady player because he is too obsessed with creating that moment of glory, and it is both an acknowledgment and a subversion of the way sports movies are supposed to end when Roy finally gets that moment of glory.
That is what makes a Ron Shelton sports movie better than anyone else's sports movies: he has a better understanding of the way fans and players think. He also knows how to create scenes which sing with unexpected wit. Roy is always willing to take a bet on an improbable shot, and some of TIN CUP's best moments involve those bets, including one in which Roy uses a bag of garden tools to play. Shelton also gives his actors subtly eccentric characters to play, with tremendous results. Rene Russo is sexy and off-center as Molly, Don Johnson is a perfect arrogant foil, and Cheech Marin does superb supporting work as Roy's friend and caddy Romeo. Only the leisurely, golf-like pace of TIN CUP proves troubling -- at 135 minutes, it has a few too many dead spots, and a rather unnecessary tangent involving Roy's stripper ex-girlfriend. But by the time TIN CUP ends, those moments will have been forgotten. You'll be thinking about how smartly and cleverly Ron Shelton can write a sports film, how good Kevin Costner can be in them, and how many sports might be left on which they can collaborate.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 course records: 9.
Scott Renshaw Stanford University http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~srenshaw
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