Product Description

Nothing was going to stop Roy Hobbs from fulfilling his boyhood dream of baseball superstardom. Robert Redford stars in this inspiring fable that begins when 14-year-old Hobbs (Redford) fashions a powerful bat from a fallen oak tree. He soon impresses major league scouts with his ability, fixing his extraordinary talent in the mind of sportswriter Max Mercy (Duvall), who eventually becomes instrumental in Hobbs' career. But a meeting with a mysterious woman shatters his dream. Years pass and an older Hobbs reappears as a rookie for the New York Knights. Overcoming physical pain and defying those who have a stake in seeing the Knights lose, Hobbs, with his boyhood bat, has his chance to lead the Knights to the pennant and to finally fulfill his dream.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7394 in DVD
• Released on: 2001-04-03
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Chinese, English, French, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 132 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
From the sun-dappled heartland, a young man (Robert Redford, in soft lighting) emerges as maybe the best baseball player anybody's ever seen. On his way to the majors, he is cut down by an enigmatic black widow (Barbara Hershey) and vanishes for many years. When he reemerges, a silent mystery, he lands a spot with the New York team and begins tearing up the league--he's still the natural. Fans of the Bernard Malamud novel will be dismayed at the pure mythical hokum of this film, but baseball fanatics have been known to watch and rewatch this one; after all, it's constructed as a kind of shrine to the national pastime. Barry Levinson (Rain Man) directs the movie with an unabashed devotion to the game, although the film could use more of the realities of chewing tobacco and pine tar. Redford is fine, and Kim Basinger and Oscar-nominated Glenn Close are effective as the women in his life. The crowning touch is the soaring, extraordinary music by Randy Newman, the singer-songwriter turned orchestral composer. --Robert Horton

Amazon.com
Director Barry Levinson mentions in his video introduction the 1984 movie was rushed to theaters and this 2007 DVD is more the film he originally intended. This "director's cut" adds about 15 minutes of footage and deletes 5. It tightens the first third of the film, yet any fan of the lyrical prologue set in perfect synchronization with Randy Newman's score will be disappointed. Now the beginning is told in flashback as the elder Hobbs returns home. (It's also confusing to keep track of which Hobbs story you are watching when they are both on a train.) The changes do not improve the story or character; it simply packs in more information before Hobbs enters the Knight's dugout. After that, there are a few new scenes and many extensions, most involving Memo (Kim Basinger) and Red (Richard Farnsworth). None of the additions are exceptional. One could hope there is an Easter egg with the remastered original edition. What is on the second disc are above-average featurettes with interviews from most of the major talent. The best little ditties includes Newman's playful "lyrics" to his theme music and Levinson's divulgence that he is the radio play-by-play man. There's a good discussion on adapting (and changing) the novel, the allegorical myths, and the real-life inspirations including a heart-felt segment on Eddie Waitkus, a baseball player who was shot by an obsessed fan. A 5.1 Dolby soundtrack is now available and compliments an excellent video upgrade. --Doug Thomas

Customer Reviews

Maybe the best baseball movie of all time - but there's one glaring flaw
Let's get this out of the way: I LOVE this movie. It's one of the best, if not the best, baseball movies ever made. The sports action is believable, Hobbs (Redford) is an incredible character, and the musical score is phenomenal. Hobbs is, indeed, the natural. He can hit the ball so far and hard that the cover has no choice but to fly off, and an entire electrical system in a stadium is destroyed with a well-placed 750-foot homerun - surge protectors and transformer boxes be damned! Simply incredible, awe-inspiring, and it's a requirement for any fan of sports movies.

As a kid, he was essentially a combination of Benny "The Jet" Rodriguez from The Sandlot and Kelly Leek from The Bad News Bears, except for the fact that he caught better, hit harder, and ran faster than either of the others, and didn't have the smoking habit or the girly hair. The man was made for baseball; he's been a superstar his entire life, the big man on campus. Then he got shot by that evil black-widow, wench Barbara Hershey for absolutely no reason (she should have shot Glenn Close).

Then he takes a ten year layoff with a bullet in his abdomen, and he's still a BAMF sporting an average over .500 and roughly one home run every three at bats! There is simply no comparison to how awesome he was/is. He would have hit the ball right through Rick "Wild Thing" Vaughn's chest if he were on Major League (Wild Thing Edition). He would have made Kevin Costner retire before he even met Kelly Preston on For Love of the Game. He would have made Henry Rowengartner from Rookie of the Year pee himself. He would have made Jim Morris from The Rookie (Widescreen Edition) look so bad all the kids from the high school team would have quit and tried out for football. Deniro would have demanded a pay raise for Hobbs if he were in The Fan. The Angels would have just shrugged their shoulders at those two kids in Angels in the Outfield and watched the homerun sail over the fence as the Angels lost. And Hobbs would have simply murdered the entire cast of Fever Pitch (Widescreen Edition) if he were anywhere near that abomination. With all of that said, with Hobbs' legendary status confirmed, with hordes of women no doubt swooning over his rock star status, how am I supposed to believe he would find Glenn Close attractive?

Other than that, I love the movie, and I feel it's nearly perfect. It's not only one of the best baseball movies ever, it's one of the best movies ever.

One of the WORST movies I've seen
A coworker forwarded me a list of '20 movies that make men cry' and the Natural was one I hadn't gotten arount to seeing. (BTW 'Old Yeller' is the ONLY legitimate movie on the list.)
The only reason to cry when seeing this movie is from the pain caused by stabbing youe eyes out with an ice pick to avoid seeing any more. My very first impression was that Redford, besides being a terrible actor, looks about 30 years too old to play the ADULT character. Never mind the complete joke of him as a 19 year old. The plot is about as lame as they come and the ending is just stupid. Really NONE of the characters are believable except possibly Glenn Close but her brief screen time is not sufficient to rescue this abomination.
I realize a lot of guys will want to see this for themselves and there is that masochistic fringe that will enjoy this movie simply because it is so bad.
If you just have to subject yourself to this -- rent Don't buy!

Classic
Very thoughtful and well made movie whether about baseball or not, is well deserving to be seen. This movie has an element rarely seen anymore in movies and that is "character".