I am pretty sure that there aren’t many who haven’t heard of Bobby Jones but for those that haven’t he took the golfing world by storm in the 1920s winning trophy after trophy as he first hit the big time at the age of 14 before retiring at the age of 28. Yeah 28!!
Bobby Jones – Stroke of Genius is a film focused on telling the story of that man as they try to capture his ambition along with his relentless pursuit of perfection.
Jim Caviezel, a man you may recognize as the recent star of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, stars as the famed golfer and just like in Passion he turns in an excellent performance. Considering that there isn’t a ton of footage of Bobby Jones a lot of his personality had to be gained from interaction with his family who paid close attention to every step taken on this flick.
While his performance is fantastic, along with his ability to closely match Jones’ swing, the film isn’t exactly up to par, but I will say it is definitely a golf addicts dream.
This film is filled with tons of golf footage, which is to be expected, but it seems to take away from the dramatic love story that is also trying to be told. Often times you will find yourself in the middle of a golf tournament and then taken into Jones’ private life rather abruptly, taking away from the flow of the film.
For the most part the film seems to flow well, particularly in the middle and the end, but throughout the middle the story seems to jump around too much, and while you aren’t thrown off track anyone looking to keep with the flow of the movie will begin to lose interest.
While this picture may be a golfer’s dream, those not familiar with the game, or just don’t care about it altogether, will find no interest here as the majority of the story lies on the links and Jones’ private life becomes an afterthought.
