8/16/6
MOVIE REVIEW: Tin Cup
Offbeat golf movie offers dynamite finale

By MICHAEL JANUSONIS
Journal-Bulletin Arts Writer

*** (out of five)
Starring Kevin Costner, Rene Russo, Cheech Marin, Don Johnson, Linda Hart. A Warner Bros. picture written by John Norville and Ron Shelton, directed by Shelton. Rated R, contains profanity, sexual situations. Running time: 133 minutes.

Kevin Costner and writer-director Ron Shelton, who turned minor league baseball into THE summertime moviegoing sport of 1988 with Bull Durham, have again joined forces . . . this time on the golf links in Tin Cup.

But charming and offbeat as Tin Cup is, it's doubtful that they can turn this film into the same kind of must-see movie experience.

I mean, it's about golf.

Not exactly a barn-burning sport.

Gentlemanly. Leisurely.

And that's precisely the way much of Tin Cup is played, despite the shenanigans and the presence of Rene Russo, the stunning actress who here doesn't create many sparks with Costner's Roy "Tin Cup" McAvoy. A smart cookie who went from being a trailer park sales agent to a psychologist, Russo's Dr. Molly Griswold is involved with Tin Cup's longtime college and golf rival, PGA star David Simms (Don Johnson) for much of the film.

So for a long time - nearly two hours of this two-hour-13-minute movie, in fact - Tin Cup is droll and amusing and occasionally kooky. But never very passionate.

Costner is such a low-key kind of guy that he doesn't bring a lot of oomph to the role of Tin Cup McAvoy, which is fitting. Tin Cup has lost his driving-range business in a west Texas backwater town to his ex-girlfriend, a stripper (the latest favorite Hollywood role for women) who runs the local exotic dance palace. But not much is made of that relationship, either.

He's flat broke and busted, as a song on the soundtrack says, and even Tin Cup's golf clubs are in hock. So eventually he swallows his pride and becomes a caddy to Simms to make a little money. But that doesn't last long. Tin Cup knows he's better than Simms and makes an out-of-nowhere bid to play in the U.S. Open. It's unfortunate timing for Tin Cup because suddenly his game is going nowhere. Costner, who was stuck in water in his last film, Waterworld, finds himself stuck in the golf course water hazards of Tin Cup.

Fortunately neither he nor the film drown. There's a dynamite finale that propels the last 15 minutes or so of Tin Cup into high gear and even gets the audience cheering. It's downright thrilling, something I never thought I'd say about a golf movie.

Maybe it's grandstanding - Shelton using a traditional let's-cheer-for-the-underdog finish to his otherwise unconventional, slightly dizzy script. Yet, it works in high style. And at least Shelton and co-writer John Norville don't opt for exactly the easiest and most expected way out in the end either. So at least Tin Cup is true to its off-center roots.

And despite its tendency to be a little pokey, I was never bored by Tin Cup. There are too many little surprises - like the oddball way Tin Cup can make a golf ball find its way home, or the wonderful performance of Cheech Marin (yes, of Cheech & Chong) as Tin Cup's conscience, who offers whispered advice on and off the golf course. Marin and Costner share a beautifully played sequence of escalating tension in which just about all of Tin Cup's clubs get broken in two.

And if there's not a lot of sizzle between the down-homey Costner and Russo (Tin Cup describes their relationship as being like a pair of comfortable old shoes), they have a sly, knowing respect for one another that's very adult. These are real people. And that's something you don't find much in movies anymore.