Another Robert Redford literary adaptation (what else?), complete with a voice-over narration almost as nagging as that of A River Runs through It. The narrator is an uncredited Jack Lemmon, suffering a prefatory heart attack on the golf course, lying flat on his back in the rough off the fairway, and rehashing the great event of his boyhood in Savannah: a big-money golf exhibition matching Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen (legends of the game) against the fair-haired local hero, commonly viewed as a "knight" and a "gentle-born chevalier," by the name of Rannulph Junuh (the actual spelling, not just the local pronunciation). Trouble was, the last-named (the knitted-browed Matt Damon), a hard-drinking and unshaving member of the Lost Generation, had "lost his swing," in particular, somewhere in the trenches of World War I. Until, anyhow, a mysterious and mystical caddie-cum-guru-cum-guardian-angel (the raised-browed Will Smith) materializes out of the night to help him find it. The screen version of Steven Pressfield's trim novel is perfectly unobjectionable insofar as you are not bothered by self-conscious mythologizing, grandiosity, hot air, and hauteur. Redford, the de Medici of the American independent cinema, would never dream of travelling less than first-class himself, and so the production -- a joint venture of DreamWorks and 20th Century-Fox -- is superdeluxe all the way, even when the direction totters toward simple-minded. Comes the Great War, and suddenly (momentarily) everything goes grainy and herky-jerky. Comes the Great Depression, and suddenly (momentarily) everything goes blanched and gray. Comes a funeral -- comes "Amazing Grace" on the bagpipes in accompaniment -- and suddenly (momentarily) everything goes sunsetty and autumnal. You can read Redford like a book. Appropriately enough. With Charlize Theron and (a valuable discovery) J. Michael Moncrief. (2000) — Duncan Shepherd