The Long Game

Another day, another Tarzan movie. The Long Game tells the story of 1950s golf in Texas, oh yea ... and they're Tejanos. Dennis Quade is the "good" white man who enables them. No, he's not the actual hero, but he tops the billing and is the necessary white man required for the story to happen. Where would we be without our savior? For example, he gets away with assault in the diner scene when the Tejanos were ultimately blamed. "Giant" did a better job of telling this particular secondary plot, and it was actually filmed in the 1950s. Its comparable diner scene, when Rock Hudson tore up the place and got the snot kicked out of him over 4-5 minutes, to the tune of "Yellow Rose of Texas" was cathartic for all the viewing audience (and proved his worth as an actor). But I digress. This script's dialogue was fairly formulaic. Jay Hernandez' character, JB Peña, is the placater, the voice of "assimilation." We, who are from immigrants communities, are not unfamiliar with this person. And over time, some of us have come to grips with these people, our neighbors, being more accepting of their experience, and the many bullets they took for the rest of us. There were a couple of truthful moments in the movie , e.g., the visceral shame when the Peñas and Mitchells threw the game to make the overlords comfortable (a constant, consuming, and exhausting exercise for us), well that was all too familiar and triggering. But the smiling (AKA grinning) afterward, sucking it up, the "it was stupid of me" scene with JB and Lucy immediately afterward, well that was unacceptable and unbearable. I presume this is some misguided effort to offer "balance" for the audience. Question: When the major theme is that of discrimination and racism, which are, by literal definition, part and parcel to imbalances of power, whom is this faux equity meant to appease? Shorter version: Hey folks, we are entitled to our anger. We are tired of smiling and grinning eating crow to make you feel better as some fallacious long-term strategy. These double standards must fricking end! And you are not the heroes of our story.

The problem with so many sports movies is that they don't actually care about the sport itself. The Long Game is no different. It seems as if nobody involved in the movie actually knows a thing about the game, and it seems as if most of the actors never had a club in their hands before they were cast in the film. Shots are shown obviously flubbed, but the film doesn't show where the ball goes, not ever. Sometimes you can see the actual ball shooting off to the side. The movie doesn't care. Their swings are terrible; at the end of the movie we see film of the real kids, now those kids know how to swing a club. I guess maybe if you nothing about golf, you might enjoy the story, but the writing is so bad and the dramatic tension is simply absent. They hit the ball around a bit and then suddenly they are in the state tournament. Uhhhh ok. Cheech Marin (always inexplicably in a ball cage even when he is standing around off the course) and Randy Quaid who doesn't really serve any purpose just sorta mail this one in. Great story what these kids accomplished. Too bad the movie just doesn't seem to care enough to do it justice.

Based on a true story that was little drama. A restricted Country Club in Texas does not allow JB Peña (Jay Hernandez) to join. As the local school superintendent, he recognizes five of his caddy shack students can play golf. He enlists the help of Frank Mitchell (Dennis Quaid). The film managed to build the characters of JB and student player Joe Treviño (Julian Works) with no relationship to Lee Trevino who learned to play in Dallas as a caddy. It was dull as compared to MacFarland. Nothing like winning a tournament to have Cheech salute you. The kids were told to speak English to blend in. I suspect that was added to explain why the entire film was in near English. It takes place in 1957 when Eisenhower's Mexican deportation program was in its waiting years. Guide: No swearing, sex, or nudity.

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