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BULL DURHAM
Special Edition
Review by Gordon Justesen
Stars: Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins,
Trey Wilson, Robert Wuhl
Director: Ron Shelton
Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1, French Dolby Surround, Spanish Dolby Surround,
Portuguese Mono
Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85:1, Standard 1.33:1
Studio: MGM
Features: See Review
Length: 108 Minutes
Release Date: April 2, 2002
“The
sucker teed off on that like he knew I was gonna throw a fastball.”
“He
did know.”
“How?”
“I
told him.”
Bull
Durham was a
most successful case of a good material made by the right people. It was written
and directed by Ron Shelton, a former major league ball player, who has since
been responsible for some of the most important and delightful films about
sports, including White Men Can’t Jump
and Tin Cup. Starring at the helm is
Kevin Costner, who at the time was on the rise as one of Hollywood’s hot
tickets. Costner and the sport of baseball go hand and hand beautifully, as also
seen in Field of Dreams and For
Love of the Game. These two talents have blended together to make a sports
movie that really knows what it’s talking about.
The
movie takes place in Durham, North Carolina, and is set in the minor leagues,
with the Durham Bulls having a so-so season. Each player seems to have a flaw or
two, except new catcher Crash Davis (Costner), a veteran of the minors, who
seems to get it all right. The Bulls have an imperfect pitching talent in Nuke
Laloosh (Tim Robbins), whose fastball is a winner, but whose sense of control
and maturity simply isn’t there. At the romantic heart of the movie is Susan
Sarandon, whose character of Annie Savoy is quite an original one. She believes
in the religion of baseball, and each season selects one ball player each season
to titillate. This season sparks problem, because Annie seems to be caught
between two players; Crash and Nuke.
Crash,
not believing in the same philosophy as Annie, refuses her advances, but Nuke is
very eager to sleep with any attractive woman. Annie’s selection of her one
player depends solely on who are the top prospects of the season, which Crash
and Nuke definitely fit into. Nuke begins an affair with her, but when he begins
an impressive streak, thanks to his teachings from Crash, he begins to stray
away from Annie, leaving her no other options but to want another man, with
Crash as the likely candidate.
The
movie is knowledgeable of both love and baseball, but the best scenes in Bull
Durham take place on the field. Crash and Nuke don’t get along very well,
but on the field Crash as catcher is the boss indeed, and watching Costner and
Robbins interact and at times quarreling on the pitcher’s mound is both edgy
and hysterical. One memorable funny moment comes when Crash instructs Nuke to
throw the ball at the team mascot. The most howling moment, however, is when
Crash gets into it with an umpire after a bad call.
Shelton
and Costner proved to be a winning combination for both this film, and their
superb golf comedy Tin Cup, and I’d
like to see them team up for another movie in the future. Costner is at his
sharpest here, portraying Crash as a pure bad ass of a player who has a touch of
unexpected romance in him. Sarandon is superb and astonishingly sexy in one of
her most memorable roles to date, and Tim Robbins provides a wonderful breakout
performance as the out of control Nuke.
In
the realm of sports movies, Bull Durham
hits a definite home run.
This
is a most acceptable transfer from MGM. Previously released by Image in a disc I
never saw, MGM provides their usual top quality. Picture image is clear and
sharp, with the best moments of the presentation belonging to the baseball
sequences. There are some moments of image softness here and there, but overall
this is a mostly impressive picture quality presentation.
Mostly
a dialogue driven film, Bull Durham is
provided with an adequately done 5.1 audio track. The best parts, as with the
picture, belong to the baseball scenes, which contain nice pick up of crowd
noise and ball hitting, but when off the field, the audio does simply what it
can by delivering dialogue crisply with not much other additional pickup. I also
detected a couple instances of audio bleeding.
A
nicely packaged Special Edition release, starting off with the outstanding
looking baseball slip cover. Featured are two commentary tracks; one with Kevin
Costner and Tim Robbins, and one with Ron Shelton, three documentaries; a photo
gallery, a theatrical and teaser trailer for this film and three other MGM
Special Edition releases; Rocky, When
Harry Met Sally, and The
Terminator.
Summary:
The
glory days of minor league baseball are wonderfully captured in Bull
Durham, as well as the ups and downs of the love on the side. Credit to
director Ron Shelton and star Kevin Costner for crafting a winning home run hit
of a movie.