Jeff Bridges may have won an Oscar for Crazy Heart, but for many moviegoers, he will forever be known as "The Dude."
Bridges' immortal role in The Big Lebowski gets the big screen treatment — once again — at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Edwards Greenway Grand Plaza Stadium. The Coen brothers' 1998 cult classic has been digitally restored and is back on the big screen in select theaters for one night only to kick off the Tuesday release of The Big Lebowski Limited Edition Blu-ray (Universal; $29.99, Blu-ray Disc).
The movie follows Bridges, an amicable, uninvolved stoner, through a series of misadventures that stem from mistaken identity and a stolen rug. The stellar cast includes John Goodman as Vietnam veteran Walter and the Dude's unlikely sidekick, Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi, Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Sam Elliott.
Why the cult following? The film is hilarious and lavishly detailed. The characters are approachable and endlessly quotable. The plot is a tangle of misunderstandings and psychedelic interludes.
New audiences, cult followers, bowlers, and nihilists alike —some in costume — are likely to flock to the showing. So brush up on your lingo, have a White Russian, throw on your robe, and get there early — a collectable, limited edition poster will be available for attendees while supplies last.
Making an inspiring sports movie is not a complicated formula. There are plenty of examples of teams, professional or not, that have overcome the odds to achieve success, either on the field of play or in life in general. While some tweaking is natural to create a little extra drama, usually filmmakers just need to do a decent recreation of real events and the story takes care of itself.
That ability would seem to be beyond the scope of director Ty Roberts and writer Lane Garrison, who have attempted to tell two Fort Worth-centric stories in a row: 2021’s 12 Mighty Orphans and now You Gotta Believe. This one is about the 2002 Westside Little League team that captured the country’s attention by making an improbable run to the Little League World Series, the first time a Fort Worth team had made it that far since 1960.
As the film tells it, the team was one of the worst in the league but was chosen to compete in the postseason tournament for financial reasons. The team was led by coaches Bobby Ratliff (Luke Wilson) and Jon Kelly (Greg Kinnear), both of which had sons on the team. When Bobby is diagnosed with melanoma, the team dedicates their run to him, and somehow starts playing better than they’ve ever played before.
The story gives off the vibes of past youth-centered baseball movies, especially The Sandlot, which the filmmakers try to capitalize on by casting that film’s Patrick Renna (aka Ham) in a small role. Among the players are a geeky know-it-all, a preening guy who cares more about looking good than playing well, and a star whose life doesn’t always allow him to play for the team. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t have the same charm as similar films and spends much less time letting the players shine than you might think.
Instead, the stories of the coaches are given equal, if not more, attention to anything the players are doing on the field. In the case of Bobby, that’s understandable, especially since his illness served as an inspiration for the team. But the level of detail Roberts and Garrison give to his treatment (and, for some reason, Jon’s unhappiness in his own work) is odd. Even worse, they don’t do an effective job at creating the emotional drama such an experience should generate.
Things don’t get much better when they do turn to the baseball action. The editing of the games/practices is heavy, to the point that it’s unclear if any of the kid actors can actually play or not. But the worst sin is that the filmmakers fail to convey the excitement of what the team was accomplishing. Only the final game of their run has any momentum to it at all, which the filmmakers try to sabotage by inserting a moment that insults the intelligence of any baseball fan.
Wilson (who also starred in 12 Mighty Orphans) and Kinnear remain solid screen presences, making the film watchable even when the story being told is not. Sarah Gadon and Molly Parker play their wives, and they too are interesting to watch. The child actors have varying levels of experience, and although none of them stand out, neither do they take away from the film.
You Gotta Believe should have been a great showcase for Fort Worth (although only certain scenes were actually filmed there) and the team that did the city proud over 20 years ago. Instead, it’s an ineffectual sports movie that doesn’t do them justice, a real shame given the heart that the real story has.
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You Gotta Believe is now playing in theaters. Check out red-carpet photos from the film's world premiere in Fort Worth here.