This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I loved this movie and felt that it was truly underrated. Matt Damon and Will Smith were magical and the chemistry between them was so believable. The story of a down and out golfer who overcomes the adversity of war and pulls himself from the depth of despair to rise like a phoenix from the ashes is not a new one but this one makes it seem fresh. Charlize Theron is good as the love interest and it works. The kid who inspires and believes in him adds so much to the story. And Jack Lemon as the old man (who was the kid as a youngster) gives the story depth. It inspires a love of the game of golf even in those who previously hadn't found it very interesting. It's a wonderful history lesson about the game and since I first saw this movie I began to enjoy watching golf on TV. I may even attend one of the big tournaments one of these days. The character development and back stories are interesting throughout and it makes for an engaging movie. I've seen this many times and whenever I need a feel good movie, I watch this.

This tale hangs on a well-worn peg. An African-American (Smith) acts as coach and mentor to a talented young white man (Damon) who must overcome inner demons.The game is golf. But Smith, who wanders into Damon's yard out of the night, is something more than a supportive friend. His lines turn him into a Zen master. "Every man has that perfect swing inside him." "You lost your swing but you don't find it -- it finds you." "Close your eyes and feel the field." "Golf is a game that can't be won, only played." That last one is a doozie because life has that same quality of course. The last we see of Smith is his silhouette, wandering off, hands in pockets, into a florid sunset. He came like water and like the wind he went.But Smith has some of the better lines too. In an important match, the Savanna Open or the Atlanta Closed or something, Damon winds up in the sand trap, the ball half buried. He turns to Smith, who is watching dispassionately. "What do I do now?" Smith: "About what?" The director, Robert Redford, has turned golf into a religious experience. Mystical music play while Damon contemplates the field. It's like watching Ben Hur play golf. And when the little white ball sails through the air, we hear a heavenly chorus.Golf, despite its sanctity and the imprimatur of St. Andrew himself, has always struck me as absurd. Grown men taking a stick and trying to knock a little ball into a hole in the earth. Take away the sticks, shrink the field, and you'd have a great game of marbles.Redford doesn't spell out all the technical details although they sometimes crop up willy nilly in the dialog. I never had the slightest idea of what a sand trap had a "lip" or what an "iron" was. Now I have the slightest idea. You can pick up the argot from the context.The photography of South Carolina is exquisitely done and the period details are amusing to see. The performances are all professional too. I particularly liked Charlize Theron as one of Damon's demons, the other being his shattering experiences in World War I. Certainly, Theron is beautiful but Hollywood is filled with beautiful women. Theron has rather more than these accidental attributes going for her. For one thing, she is a polished ballerina and can still bust a couple of tough moves. For another, she speaks Afrikaans. Her rosy aereolae may be a bit circumscribed in their extent but she can be forgiven for that. It's curious that her theme line with Damon should be "I like the way you dance." In many ways -- in many fundamental ways -- it's a dumb movie, but it's done so well that I hung with it, tensely, until the inevitable outcome of the only golf match the movie shows us.

A great film. The idea of Will Smith and Matt Damon golfing together sounds more like an awful comedy. Caddy Shack 3 crosses my mind lol! The Legend of Bagger Vance is a great film on several fronts. The characters are well developed. Will Smith plays an honest/mysterious character. Matt Damon's excellent performance of a man with many inner demons, who hides from others. The other supporting characters around the golf community build on the story and create a positive spirit towards the story's climax of the golf tournament. The director blends an entertaining story with social messages. Can Damon win the golf tournament, and inspire people? Sportsmanship, professionalism, doing the right thing, and having ethics is spun as the characters develop. The Legend of Bagger Vance explains the mystery of the Will Smith's character. Inspiring, and entertaining. I give The Legend of Bagger Vance a par 8 out of 10.

The story is told by Hardy Greaves who growing up in Savannah, Georgia as a child idolized golfer Rannulph Junah (Matt Damon). Rannulph had married wealthy Adele Invergordon (Charlize Theron). However he returns from WWI broken and disappears. Adele moves on with her father's business to build a golf course in 1928. She finds Rannulph return to town but a year later, the great depression hit. The golf course is complete but the financial strain drive Adele's father to suicide. Adele struggles to keep the golf course open by organizing an exhibition between Bobby Jone (Joel Gretsch) and Walter Hagen (Bruce McGill) for a prize of $10k. In a town meeting, people demand for a local golfer but the drunken Captain Junah is reluctant to play. While trying to get back his swing late one night, Bagger Vance (Will Smith) asks for a job to caddy for the big game.It takes a bit of exposition to get started. Charlize Theron and Matt Damon starts off with an interesting period piece. Then Will Smith comes in and it slowly becomes obvious that this is some kind of Magical Negro that he's playing. This is apparently a fable where racism is not much mentioned nor noticed. It demands that the viewer forget any historical realism since this is a fable after all.The best thing about this is that Robert Redford has made a beautiful looking movie. It is however slow moving, and lacks the needed energy to keep up the pace for the whole 2 hours. My biggest problem is that the fable needs much more magic especially visually. Redford does a lot of speeding up the clouds and clouds rolling by and shots of nature and shots of sky and various other in-camera moves to denote magic. It needs something more. It needs something much more. It needs to put this movie definitively into the magical territories. This is not the simple period piece that Redford is creating. (small unimportant spoiler: even the last scene is too uncertain. Bagger Vance is waving old Hardy Greaves over. Redford really needs to spell out what's going on there.)The acting seems fine to me. Matt Damon and Charlize Theron have some nice scenes together. They have the best fun and I enjoy them the most. I'm not able to tell if the accents are accurate but I don't think it's so obvious that it would offend anybody other than southerners. Will Smith is playing someone unreal. He is almost otherworldly. If this isn't a fable, I'm tempted to say that he's playing it too fake. In the end, it's an uneven viewing experience.