The most impressive single element of ”The Babe” is the magnificent rubber nose that has been glued to John Goodman, turning Roseanne`s husband into a dead ringer for legendary home run king Babe Ruth.
It`s downhill from there, as Arthur Hiller`s film, from John Fusco`s screenplay, degenerates into cornball Americana and perfunctory re-creations of the most familiar Ruth anecdotes.
The film is so wholesome and awestruck that it makes the feeble 1948
”The Babe Ruth Story,” with William Bendix as the hard-living, hard-drinking slugger, seem like a shocking, no-holds-barred expose.
What is being sold here is not the life of Babe Ruth, of course, but the image of golden innocence and daddy-worship that Americans always associate with baseball and that made a hit of ”Field of Dreams” a few years back.
Hiller and Fusco do their best to make Ruth seem large and paternal-in this version, the fondest dream of this abandoned boy is to become a doting manager to the one big family that is a baseball team-but even they have trouble making him look sober and responsible.
Given Ruth`s real-life appetites for wine, women and song, this was probably a job for writer-director Ron Shelton (”Bull Durham”) rather than Fusco, whose skills run more to the liberal myth-making of his current
”Thunderheart.” Hiller`s direction is clear and tidy and without depth, as if he were telling a story to a very small, slow child.
The film never manages to find a compelling dramatic structure for Ruth`s life. If, as F. Scott Fitzgerald famously observed, there are no second acts in American lives, Ruth`s also seems to lack a third. His success, after growing up as a discipline problem in a Catholic boys school, appears to have been early and vast; he married a nice girl (Trini Alvarado) but couldn`t make a go of the country life she wanted, and so turned to a tough-talking former Ziegfeld dancer (Kelly McGillis) for his second wife. He made a lot of money and eventually retired.
Fusco tries to wring great pathos out of Ruth`s yearning for a family of his own, giving him a foil, in the form of third baseman Jumpin` Joe Dugan
(Bruce Boxleitner), who is a wonderfully well-adjusted father of two, despite his life on the road. In one of the film`s most mawkish sequences, Joe`s wife and kids turn up to take him to dinner, and Joe must gently disinvite the hulking, moist-eyed Babe, who can`t understand why he isn`t wanted.
When he isn`t simpering, Babe is being noble, buying shoes for slum kids or promising to hit two home runs for a sick child. It doesn`t matter that these things really happened, because the thin staging and sentimental exaggeration make them seem extremely phony in any case.
Goodman still has his remarkable physical presence-the camera loves his body no less than it loved Marilyn Monroe-but it`s otherwise hard to recognize the inventive performer of ”Raising Arizona” and ”Barton Fink.” His Babe Ruth issues directly from the lovable lug/overgrown kid department, with few personal modifications or any discernable subtext.
Much of ”The Babe” was photographed in and around Wrigley Field, though only one scene-the famous ”called shot” of the 1932 World Series-is actually set there. Cub fans will appreciate the rich irony of the Friendly Confines doubling for the Polo Grounds.
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”THE BABE”
(STAR)(STAR)
Directed by Arthur Hiller; written by John Fusco; photographed by Haskell Wexler; production designed by James D. Vance; edited by Robert C. Jones;
music by Elmer Bernstein; produced by Fusco. A Universal Pictures release;
opens April 17 at the 900 North Michigan, Webster Place and outlying theaters. Running time: 1:55. MPAA rating: PG. Substance abuse.
THE CAST
Babe Ruth……………………………………………John Goodman
Claire Ruth………………………………………..Kelly McGillis
Helen Ruth…………………………………………Trini Alvarado
Jumpin` Joe Dugan…………………………………Bruce Boxleitner
Frazee……………………………………………….Peter Donat