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Review: Seven Days in Utopia

Matthew Dean Russell's creepy parable
By PETER KEOUGH  |  August 30, 2011
1.0 1.0 Stars



Golf doesn't lend itself well to the big screen. What's the driving metaphor? The Bhagavad Gita as in The Legend of Bagger Vance? Maybe the best of the bunch is Caddyshack, though Matthew Dean Russell's creepy parable, an adaptation of David Cook's novel, is almost as funny, if not intentionally. As in Tin Cup, Luke (Lucas Black) has just blown a chance at the big time, goaded into a meltdown by his hectoring caddy daddy. We know his father is a bad teacher because he's shown in flashback forcing his boy to practice on Easter Sunday. Furious, Luke drives off, and nearly hits a steer, crashing into a fence to avoid it. But the real bull is yet to come. Luke's landed in Utopia, where Johnny (Robert Duvall), teaches him faith-based golf through Mr. Miyagi-like methods of fly-fishing, painting, and piloting a plane. Could this be an allegory? As Johnny says: See, Feel, and Trust. Just don't think about it.

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  Topics: Reviews , review, Golf, Robert Duvall,  More more >
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