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The BabeRating:
Release Date: 01 June, 2003 Retail Price: $14.98 OUR Price: $12.99 You SAVE: $1.99! Cast: Complete Cast (14 total) |
The Babe Reviews
As great as the Babe was
It is the best film about baseball I have ever seen, based on the real story of one of the most important icons of the twentieth century.
Truth Stretching, and All-Out Fabrication
I saw this movie as a kid when it came out and liked it, but since then it has gone through something of a critical reevaluation. Goodman is an entertaining actor, but there are just too many factual errors, and they arguably detract too much from the film's quality.
As was noted elsewhere by other reviewers, Goodman's Ruth does not represent a great athlete. Ruth was not overweight growing up, nor in his early days as a ballplayer. Ruth's weight did fluctuate, but few to this day know that Ruth had 123 career stolen bases, and actually led the Yankees in steals one year (1923). Goodman's character was unreasonably slow, and at the end was portrayed as unable to run the bases even on a home run. This might work as light humor, but it certainly is not fact. Also of note, Goodman was a natural born right-hander that had to learn how to bat and throw left-handed like Ruth for the purpose of acting in this film. This makes Goodman look awkward, and even less like an athlete on a few occasions.
On the other hand, I understand as a general rule that playwrights and filmmakers are given a certain "artistic license," and that it is alright on some occasions to stretch the truth for a purpose. The bloated portrayal of Ruth might be one such example, no matter how erroneous it is from a factual standpoint. Even so, many of the inaccuracies have no discernable purpose. Case in point, "Jumpin' Joe" Dugan was never a teammate of Ruth's in Boston, only in New York. It is also known that Ruth did not have any home runs in 1914, but according to this movie he had one that year. In addition, Ruth was not the first player to hit a home run at Forbes Field. The list could go on for a while, and there seems to be no reason why the filmmakers decided to alter such facts. "Jumpin' Joe" may have been put in there just to have a veteran teammate friend for Ruth, but Dugan started his career three years after Ruth did, so he could not have been a veteran to Ruth at any point in his career. They could have picked someone else to fill this fictitious "veteran teammate" role, or scrapped the idea all together. The 1914 home run served the purpose of providing a dramatic rookie year home run, but this scene could have been set in 1915 instead, and with some modifications perhaps could have been just as dramatic. Lastly, regarding Forbes Field, the announcer could have said a true statement along the lines of "Forbes Field is a pitchers ballpark, not many home runs are hit here folks," as opposed to the inaccurate "no one has ever hit a ball out of Forbes Field." The latter line had a dramatic effect, but was not necessary.
Also of note, Ruth's supposed "meeting" with gangster Alphonse Capone seemed a bit absurd, perhaps this was thrown in to get a glimpse of the times. Aside from the dicey misrepresentations though, there were a few strong qualities. The acting was strong overall, with Ruth's two wives giving strong performances, and Goodman's performance was not a total wash, even if there was too much over-the-top buffoonery. And let it be said that this film does have the ability to evoke some of the excitement of the game of baseball - a sentiment especially felt as an eight or nine year old viewer. But as said by Derek Armstrong, there were "too few ambitions toward a greatness to match that of its subject matter."
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