BULL DURHAM. Directed and written by Ron Shelton; produced by Thom Mount and Mark Burg for Orion. Starring Susan Sarandon, Kevin Coetner and Tim Robbins. Rated R (language, some graphic sex, lots of sexual references).
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No, an oddball isn't a new kind of pitch. But it's a pretty good description of Bull Durham. This beauty of a baseball movie is both a homage to the nationaI pastime and a satire of its big league manifestations.
But its characters are all more or less off-center. And while it's extremely funny, its spicy humor usually comes from left field.
The Durham of the title is in North Carolina and the Bull is the mascot of that town's class A farm club. The parent team has recently signed bonus baby pitcher Ebby Calvin Laloosh (Robbins' character wins the prize for best name in a movie that has some really choice ones). He's sent to Durham for some seasoning. Veteran catcher Crash Davis (Costner) gets the nod to be the kid's chief mentor.
Wacky—and unprintable—complications arise when another Bull veteran, camp follower Annie Savoy (Sarandon) takes an interest in both members of the battery. Her knowledge of baseball is encyclopedic and philosophic, and her love of the game (and the strong young men who play it) is all-encompassing.
The purely baseball side of the Bull Durham story is my favorite. It's full of humor, full of sympathy for the human condition, and full of neat baseball talk. For all the romantic sparks generated by Costner and Sarandon, though, I find the love story less enjoyable.
Annie's extravagant jock worship (although, until she meets Crash, at least, she's always in control in every relationship) and her absorption with sex makes her an interesting character, perhaps, but not a very sympathetic one. And the story's basic sexism is more than a little irritating.
Even so, Bull Durham is a must-see for baseball fans (although definitely only the adult variety).
June 29, 1988