Bull Durham is a story surrounding a baseball love triangle. Crash Davis (Kevin Costner) is a veteran minor league player on the verge of retiring. Tim Robbins is his young pitcher, Ebby Calvin ‘Nuke’ LaLoosh, that doesn’t have a clue and has to rely on Crash to buy him one. In between the old and new lies Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon) a woman who follows the Durham team and sleeps with one player each year (depending on their performance on and off the field, of course). Between them, they all have one mission to make LaLoosh good enough to get to the major leagues through sex (Savoy) and mentoring (Davis).
Bull Durham is a classic baseball movie with a unique perspective; it’s all based in the minor leagues. The raw, onscreen environment built around that central theme leads into a very solid story of romance and coming-of-age. It’s sprinkled with witty, dry comedy from Costner’s Crash Davis and some great ‘dumb’ comedy from Robbins’ LaLoosh. What makes it work well is the chemistry that both actors bring with their characters. The back and forth banter that Davis and LaLoosh create is so classic that you’re going to laugh the first time and three years from now when you watch it again. Putting the love interest in the middle of the characters (no pun intended) with Sarandon’s Annie simply heightens the tension already built between mentor and student.
Most of the film is well written, as the comedy rolls from the beginning until about three-fourths way through the film. You get an ever-growing LaLoosh learning and adapting to the lessons that Crash Davis is dishing. The problem with the film is that it has some trouble ending. (SPOILER ALERT) As LaLoosh goes to the majors the film continues with an extended dialogue from Annie. The dialogue surrounds both LaLoosh and Davis and eventually ends with Davis coming back to Annie. It’s very unnecessary, but it does create a solid conclusion; even though it took ten miles to get there.
Still, at the end of the day the movie works and is more than enjoyable.
As for the MGM/Fox Blu-ray upgrade from the original film, it’s pretty tight. The film is pretty sweaty and gloomy (much like the players in the film), but it’s detailed and crisp on a 1080p set. The colors are pretty solid with little to no graininess included. I was really impressed with the night games as you can feel the musty air around you thanks to some pretty sharp visuals.
As for the audio, eh. The audio is good, but nothing special. There’s not enough of a good soundtrack to really praise the DTS-HD. Don’t get me wrong; it’s sharp. There’s just not enough there to call it perfect.
Finally, you get some really solid features, though they’re presented on the DVD that accompanies the Blu-ray. Shot in 480i, they’re still very detailed oriented. You get some fantastic commentary from director Ron Shelton, Kevin Costner and Tim Robbins. You also get some great featurettes that include a very detailed description about key pieces of dialogue and locations. For example, director Ron Shelton talks about the opening monologue from Annie and how he said and wrote that word-for-word on a car trip. Pretty cool stuff.
Here’s the complete list of features:
– Audio Commentary
– The Greatest Show on Dirt
– Diamonds in the Rough
– Between the Lines – The Making of Bull Durham
– Kevin Costner Profile
– Sports Wrap
