If it weren’t for professional obligations, this would have been my chance for the greatest nap ever taken. A dramatization of Frances Ouimet’s (Shia LaBeouf) unlikely performance at the 1913 U.S. Open, it features soft sunsets on verdant golf courses and a caressing, inspirational score, both telling symptoms of the picture’s basic problem. This is a feel-good exercise so calculated to appeal to a specific audience – those who like their movies squeaky-clean – that it never establishes an identity beyond its mercenary aims. The movie may be obsessively inoffensive, but it’s still as exploitative as any teen slasher flick.
