Considering its superlative title (second only to George Stevens's New Testament epic, The Greatest Story Ever Told), I'm sorry to report that The Greatest Game Ever Played ranks somewhere in the murky middleground of sports movies. It's better than most (but not all) of Disney's tween flatulent-misfits-forman-underdog-sports-team movies, but packs little of the emotional wallop of true-story classics like Hoosiers or Rudy.

If it weren't for Shia LaBeouf, the charmingly awkward young star of Disney's Holes, we'd be stuck with a glorified TV movie, complete with lousy CG effects and indecipherable golfing montages. Thankfully, LaBeouf is immensely likable as Francis Ouimet, the son of a ditch digger whose only entrée into the elitist world of golf is working as a caddy.

To its credit, the movie reveals a forgotten page in golf's history when the sport was still considered a gentlemen's activity, and yet, the movie is simpleminded in its depiction of the era's segregationist notions. These men had their reasons, however outdated, for wanting to keep the sport exclusive, and it seems rather lopsided (not to mention lazy) to reduce Ouimet's opponents to a bunch of callous oyster-sucking bluebloods.

With too little golf in the first half of the movie and too much in the second, the movie liberally depicts the sport as one where audiences applaud heartily and crowd-surf their winners above their heads. Long before Tiger Woods, players pump their fists to celebrate impressive shots. I'm uncertain of the history, of course, but I question the way director Bill Paxton selectively embellishes certain details for maximum emotional impact.

There's Elias Koteas as Ouimet's disapproving daddy and beautiful newcomer Peyton List as a pretty rich girl who cheers Ouimet from the sidelines – a love interest in whom the movie eventually loses interest. The real whopper is Josh Flitter as Ouimet's kid caddy, Eddie Lowery, who steps in at the last moment to carry his clubs. Yes, Lowery was 10 years old when he accompanied Ouimet at the U.S. Open, but something tells me he wasn't this precocious, juggling wisdom well beyond his years with comments like, "Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.''

As for Ouimet, who grew up living across the street from The Country Club in Brookline, Mass., it's thrilling to see him achieve his dream of playing alongside the men whose clubs he once carried, but it's confusing knowing what to make of him as a player. Early on, we see young Francis practicing at home, tapping the ball across his uneven hardwood floor with a donated club. Next thing we know, he's being invited to play on a real course, where he scores an impressive 81 on his first game. Does that mean he's a natural? And where did the rest of his clubs come from? Such details remain a mystery as we embark on the lively but overlong U.S. Open sequence that delivers the movie to its foregone conclusion.

[as featured in The Miami Herald]