A tremendously acted portrait of a first-class Prick, Ty Cobb

DVDs:

	• Cobb Tommy Lee Jones, Robert Wuhl Warner Home Video, 2003 average customer review:based on 37 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A Great Baseball Film

Even if you're not a baseball fan, this is a helluva great film that really gets inside a complex human being who just happens to be the best baseball player of all-time.
Tommy Lee Jones has never been better and Robert Wuhl gives an outstanding performance that gets short shrift to Jones' sublime turn.
This movie never gets mentioned when they compile the list of best sport's movies but "Cobb" is a terrific film that is hands down a better film then "The Natural." (A highly overrated movie).
This is probably the second best baseball film of all-time after "Field of Dreams."

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Five-Star Level of Disgust

Yes, it is possible to feel utter disgust for the subject of a movie - even while acknowledging respect for the excellent performance by Tommy Lee Jones in transforming himself into Ty Cobb, a man who has nothing to redeem him but a talent for tossing and batting a ball. It is, after all, a game, folks.

The movie, in general, is well done. No technical complaints, no complaints on any performance by any actor, no complaints about how the life of this man Cobb was portrayed - may the truth be told. "Prince among men," says Cobb of himself. "A great who is misunderstood." Hardly. I have rarely seen a portrayal of a man with so little to redeem him. His only excuse, achingly lame, is that there was an ugly scene in his childhood, adulterous parents gone mad with rage. Okay. Anyone out there without a dysfunction in your childhood, raise your hand! Thought so. Albeit, Cobb's childhood contains some doozies, but as he himself admits: "I was a prick even before my father was murdered." He begs the nature versus nurture debate, but personally, I don't care. Anyone who so defies any accountability for himself throughout his 72 years, eschews all responsibility, gains no compassion from me. He beat his many wives, attempted rape, regularly frequented prostitutes, abused his children, was racist to the bone, purposefully aimed to injure other athletes on the field, exhibited only brutality and rudeness to others, and topped it all off with an incredible arrogance. At least justice reigns: Cobb has not a single friend in the world, knows only hatred, and must deal with his own demons to the very end.

And he is in the baseball Hall of Fame? Why? I struggle to respect the game if it honors such as Cobb, regardless of his stats.

Yes, that's right, that's five stars I gave this movie. Perhaps we at times need to be reminded of what and how not to be, where to draw the line, and perhaps a portrayal such as this might spur some on to think twice about who we honor in our baseball-adoring culture, and why.

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A tremendously acted portrait of a first-class Prick, Ty Cobb

Talk about films that are totally unsentimental about their lead character!!! COBB is just that.

Baseball great Tyrus Raymond Cobb, by his own admission, was a prick his entire life. Ron Shelton, in his written and directed biopic of the "Georgia Peach" does nothing to dispel this claim. Tommy Lee Jones attacks this role with such ferociousness that I doubt that anyone could like this character. Cobb was arguably the best ball player of his time. He was generally hated by all that came in contact with him. Jones plays him to a tee. Cobb is totally repelling and there is not but possibly a half ounce of sympathy for him in this film. This is the film's biggest problem: who can sit and watch total narcissistic behavior for 129 minutes??? Even amidst his totally insane and irrational behavior, there are some brilliant comic moments, but not enough to lift this film from the relentless heavy-handedness. After a while you have simply seen enough and want to walk out, never to return. There is nothing that made me respect or care for Ty Cobb in the slightest. Cobb was a bully, a manipulator, a cheat, a liar, a carouser, a drunk, a wife-beater who was forsaken by his five children and more. No excuse can be given for this kind of behavior no matter how "great" the man.

This film did strike a very personal chord in me. My own father was a "Ty Cobb." My father did all and was even more than Cobb was. He, like Cobb, died alone,rejected by his family and friends in his old age. After 84 years, only six people attended his funeral, and only out of some weird obligatory feeling. So, in brief, COBB reflected much of what I knew to be true in my own experience from my life. NOT A PLEASANT WATCH FOR SOME!

Elliot Goldenthal's original soundtrack is appropriately riveting and truly is an asset in the fast moving scenes!

Is COBB a well done film? Absolutely.Is it stylish and clever? Absolutely. Does it drag on? Absolutely. Did I learn something? Absolutely. Have I seen enough, though? Absolutely.

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For BB fans a strong 4; casual sports fans a 3.

Though some people consider Cobb the greatest, I don't recall ever seeing any name higher than Mr. Ruth in any book, on any list, with the exception of one book which places Willie Mays at the top. So with that statement, there should be many sports fans and historains who would want to check this movie/DVD out (though it's a little light on actual baseball *playing* - too bad, because the photography/camera work is terrific).
Tommy Lee Jones plays the part as if he's auditioning for the part of Mephistofolies; or Sweeney Todd; it's surely "over the top" but he dominates every single scene he's in, actually over-running (with no sharpened spikes) Mr. Rhul, playing the (now) legendary sports writer Al Stump. In "real life", it seems Stump had to deal with a relatively tame but decidedly moody lion, in motel rooms, in banquet halls, in lounges, all over the place.
The movie portrays a somewhat self-righteous writing genuis, as it constantly refers to his own personal troubles - the more he yells at his employer, who ultimately he does befriend, albeit cautiously, the more the very perceptive, though dying 72 year old man, reminds him of his own mess as a filanderer and failed husband. There's a rather unconvincing scene towards the end of the picture, when at some motel Stump is presented with Divorce papers and he begins to fire Cobb's gun in the direction of this guy who's been chasing him around the country for this purpose. The script is very strong throughout but here the scene ends on a depressing note. What was needed was for Cobb to simply convey through his eyes "Wanna throw any more "stones" at *me*, son?" Well, maybe that's a bit trite, but the scene closes as Lee says that he saw nothing - just a coupla bad boys.
Lolita Davidovitch has some good scenes, but her 1960 Vegas Cocktail Waitress has the look but not the "feel", meaning Shelton probably had to make her a milennium feminist to fit the quasi-political contemporary movie industry demands. Keeping the character more to the period would have worked.
Another concession to the male-female spirit of today, not 1960, is in a deleted scene: Stump watches, through his office window, and in the company of his Secretary, a shapely lady ascend a staircase. In the midst of his confusion and disorientation, he tells his exasperated co-worker to tell his wife, who has just called, well, tell her something. I wonder what the "real" Al Stump thought of that kind of stuff.
Tyrus Raymond Cobb surely fought death...and life. In his profession, he reached high, refusing to be taken lightly or be beaten. As his violent world finally came crashing in, and his health was in free-fall, he still refused to acknowledge his vulnerability, his mortality. Maybe that's the only real lesson to be learned by all of this: even a wicked man can sustain by calling up his reserve of strength and courage; maybe even artfulness.
Mr. Shelton delivers a very interesting narrative of the back story, though he sounds very subdued - perhaps the memory that the kind of numbers the Georgia Peach drew out to the old ball park did not exactly compare to this movie about his last days.

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Thought Provoking film about a great baseball player

Cobb is a haunting type of film, mostly because it chronicles the end of a man's life. This man was Ty Cobb, one of the most spectacular athletes in the sport of baseball. Hailed as one of the greatest of all time, Cobb's ability to steal bases was just as good as his inability to be a gentleman. Cobb's personality flaws were well known and brought out well in this film by the actor Tommy Lee Jones. The film swirls around a man interviewing Cobb for a spell in which there would be no tomorrow. Cobb is a man who is dying of cancer and is just as ornery and blunt in nature as he was during his playing days. Jones is great as Cobb, and the direction of this film is haunting, with some very, very poignant if not extremely sad moments that are shown. A woman looking through a window at a man she knows is her father, but does not speak to is one of them. The look on Cobb's face as the car drives off for this scene is one of those sad ones. The sometimes hateful, irritable disposition is replaced by a look of somber sorrow as he realizes some of the most important things in his life are gone.

The prophetic statements about the stock market were interesting, as Cobb was an avid investor up to the end. "They are going to start putting coca cola in these cans made out of aluminum" he says. Remember, the 60s had just started so even at that time for Cobb to have the open mind to accept a progressive future in technology was incredible, considering the film shows his final years spent in a large, dark house out in the middle of nowhere. The musical score is also impressive and does nothing but add to the film.

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