The Long Game

It's 1956 Del Rio, Texas. JB Peña (Jay Hernandez) is the new principal at San Felipe High School which serves mostly local Mexican-American kids. His mentor Frank Mitchell (Dennis Quaid) tries to get him into the exclusive country club, but they reject him as a member. At the school, he encounters five teenagers who are caddies at the club, but would never be allowed to play there. He decides to form a high school golf team with those kids.

This is the standard underdog sports movie with a whole lot of social commentary. It is a little long and a little slow around the middle. Although I wouldn't know what to cut. It is trying to say a lot with a lot of characters. I do wonder about the climatic arrest. It's too convenient to happen at that moment and feels manufactured. Maybe it actually happened. This movie just needs a little less, but it's plenty good.

Just watched the Long Game on Netflix and I'm not sure I've spent much time writing reviews for formulaic 'underdog movies' between 6-7 stars. However, I enjoyed the movie but moreover was blown away at the screen presence of Jay Hernandez who plays the lead. This guy carries, Quaid is a great backup for a movie like this, heck I expect him in every underdog movie, don't you? Story is decent but delivery can be everything sometimes and Jay Hernandez nails it.

I hope he gets a few other big dynamic movie roles because I think he's got it. Maybe not the immediate draw of a Hardy or Dicaprio, but definitely a Clooney.

Hey Hollywood, sign em up!

For as long as there have been movies, the "underdog" niche has been popular. What's not to like about watching someone (or someones) come from behind to show the rest of us that, in the right circumstances, anything is possible? Golf might seem at first like a poor fit for this category, but of course the real story is about discrimination. It works. Jay Hernandez is the glue that keeps the attention of the audience, and he basically steals every scene not otherwise nailed down. Quaid has recently started a "second career" as an older actor playing older parts. And he is good in all of them. The 1950s are a welcome distraction for viewers in an age where modern and now both seem somehow inauthentic and wrong. ((Designated "IMDb Top Reviewer." Please check out my list "167+ Nearly-Perfect Movies (with the occasional Anime or TV miniseries) you can/should see again and again (1932 to the present))

The Long Game is based on true events of a group of Mexican American caddies who are set out to learn the sport of golf. In 1956, South Texas region the boys create their own course because they are not welcome on the same course as white golfers. Jay Hernandez plays the superintendent of the local school district and he takes the kids under his wing along with Dennis Quaid to help nurture them into fine golfers and to compete against all the other golfers. Oscar Nunez acts as the principal of the high school, Cheech Marin as the groundskeeper, Jaina Lee Ortiz and Gillian Vignam are the spousal support system for the boys and Brett Cullen as the local judge who disallows the boys to compete on his grounds. This movie was the Field Of Dreams type of feel good film but for golf. The boys did win the championship in 1957 and some of them went on to compete in the PGA. Overall it was a good family movie, I would recommend it.

I enjoyed this movie. I was predisposed to because of the parallels in my own life in the 1950s in a small southern town. The nearest golf course was 30 miles away so I built my own clubs from old broom sticks and pieces of 2X4 lumber. I built a small course in our long back yard. At one point my dad bought me a 9-iron and a few real balls. Finally in 1962 I made it to the course, I played with a borrowed set of clubs, it was the beginning of 60+ years of golf for me.

So these rural Texas kids, of Mexican parents, had a similar affinity for the game. Five of them worked as caddies at the local "whites only" country club. But they wanted to play the game so they spent leisure time crafting their own rough golf course, using balls they scavenged after hours and discarded golf clubs.

A new school superintendent who loved golf showed up for the new school year, he too of Mexican ancestry, found out about the five boys, and began the quest to form them into real golfers. Plus dealing with the racism of the time and overcoming it to grow into fine young men.

While the characters and the story are true the screenplay was built from a book written after extensive research and interviews. So it is authentic to the real 1950s story but of course includes fictionalized scenes and dialog to make it an entertaining movie. Much of the movie was shot in the nearby towns of Smithville and Bastrop in the areas west of Houston.

It is a well-crafted and entertaining movie. My wife and I, both avid golfers, enjoyed it, streaming at home.