So, what do I know about Ty Cobb? Admittedly not very much. He's a baseball player of a bygone era. I've seen pictures of him, and I know that his statistics suggest that he was one of the best (if not the best) baseball players of all time. But, of course, it's hard to compare baseball players (or any athlete) of almost a hundred years ago with more recent figures. Times have changed; so has the game. I watched this to learn a little more about a legendary figure. How much I learned depends on how accurate Al Stump's biography of Cobb is. Stump wrote the biography on which this movie was based, and his honesty has been widely called into question. Here, Cobb is portrayed as a very violent man, a heavy drinker and a racist - disliked by almost everyone who knew him. That latter part at least is apparently true. From what I've read even his own teammates couldn't stand him. The rest may be exaggerated. He was certainly a driven man, treating baseball as if it were a war, willing to deliberately injure his opponents and passionate to the point of obsession with winning - which makes one part of his baseball career curious: he never won a World Series, and in the three in which he played, he didn't perform well. Enigmatic, to say the least.
This movie doesn't really focus on baseball. There's a little bit of game action portrayed (with Roger Clemens doing a cameo as an opposing pitcher) and some recreated newsreel footage, with Tommy Lee Jones substituting for the real Cobb, but mostly it's a portrayal of Cobb's life, and something of an exploration of what made Cobb the type of player and person he was. As a line from the movie put it, "the greatest baseball player ever was also the greatest bastard." Whether that's true or not is, as I mentioned, a point of contention and depends on Stump's accuracy. It is true, as the movie points out, that his father was killed when he was a teenager, and his mother was charged with the murder and acquitted. It's also true that he spent most of his later life estranged from his children. That's always very sad.
Jones was excellent in his portrayal of Cobb, and Robert Wuhl handled the part of Stump quite well. The movie is sometimes funny (such as the wild car ride down the mountains), sometimes disturbing (such as Cobb's assault on Ramona, played by Lolita Davidovitch) and sometimes even sad (as, near the end, when Cobb starts spitting up blood and is obviously frightened, knowing that the end is near.) It's accuracy may be questionable, but it's an enjoyable enough film. I did expect, as I suggested earlier, a little more of a portrayal through flashbacks of Cobb's's baseball career, but Stump's take on the man's life is entertaining enough, even if it is exaggerated and paints Cobb in a more negative light than he deserves. (7/10)
This movie doesn't really focus on baseball. There's a little bit of game action portrayed (with Roger Clemens doing a cameo as an opposing pitcher) and some recreated newsreel footage, with Tommy Lee Jones substituting for the real Cobb, but mostly it's a portrayal of Cobb's life, and something of an exploration of what made Cobb the type of player and person he was. As a line from the movie put it, "the greatest baseball player ever was also the greatest bastard." Whether that's true or not is, as I mentioned, a point of contention and depends on Stump's accuracy. It is true, as the movie points out, that his father was killed when he was a teenager, and his mother was charged with the murder and acquitted. It's also true that he spent most of his later life estranged from his children. That's always very sad.
Jones was excellent in his portrayal of Cobb, and Robert Wuhl handled the part of Stump quite well. The movie is sometimes funny (such as the wild car ride down the mountains), sometimes disturbing (such as Cobb's assault on Ramona, played by Lolita Davidovitch) and sometimes even sad (as, near the end, when Cobb starts spitting up blood and is obviously frightened, knowing that the end is near.) It's accuracy may be questionable, but it's an enjoyable enough film. I did expect, as I suggested earlier, a little more of a portrayal through flashbacks of Cobb's's baseball career, but Stump's take on the man's life is entertaining enough, even if it is exaggerated and paints Cobb in a more negative light than he deserves. (7/10)