Fresh
Being a baseball fan involves repeatedly experiencing exquisite pain and exquisite joy. Well, there's a lot of both in The Natural.
Gene Siskel, Chicago Tribune
The Natural
He lived for a dream that wouldn't die.
1984 · 2h 17m · PG
Drama
Directed by
Barry Levinson
Overview
An unknown middle-aged batter named Roy Hobbs with a mysterious past appears out of nowhere to take a losing 1930s baseball team to the top of the league.
Director and cast
- Barry Levinson Director
- Robert Redford as Roy Hobbs
- Robert Duvall as Max Mercy
- Glenn Close as Iris Gaines
- Kim Basinger as Memo Paris
- Wilford Brimley as Pop Fisher
- Barbara Hershey as Harriet Bird
- Robert Prosky as The Judge
- Richard Farnsworth as Red Blow
- Joe Don Baker as The Whammer
- Darren McGavin Cast
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
83%
Tomatometer
Fresh
Levinson must have felt he had to swing for the fences. He can be forgiven for choking up with all The Natural's fans looking on dubiously. In fairness, the official scorer must credit him with a single. And Redford with an RBI.
Richard Schickel, TIME Magazine
Fresh
The Natural is an impeccably made, but quite strange, fable about success and failure in America.
Variety Staff, Variety
Rotten
I've just about had it with directors who use the mythic mode as an alibi for unshaded characterizations, simpleminded plotting, and swells of artificial emotionality.
Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
Rotten
The message is: Baseball is purely and simply a matter of divine intervention. At about the 130-minute mark, I got the idea that God's only begotten son was playing right field for the New York team.
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
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