![]() Johnny finally lets Luke have it with some religious hard sell, and Luke has a “God is everywhere” meltdown, which, despite its inevitability in this film, feels sudden and ungrounded in its tearful intensity.Ĭue a soaring tune by Christian rock band Third Day on being “born again,” and Luke takes his place among the faithful-literally everyone else in town, literally everyone awaiting his arrival in the church. Luke’s odd encounter with a CGI bull at a town rodeo contributes to the sense that none of this is all that real. The seven days in Utopia start to feel like a slog. While the rapport between Johnny and Luke is cute-and Duvall is his usual winning self here, making even the deadest lines sing-the lessons are not as out-of-the-box as the filmmakers might imagine. But Jonny-often authoring Yoda-like pronouncements such as “Don’t think, see!”-relates everything back to “staying in your game” as he drops more and more hints about the Bible and church life. The master’s course of study turns out to be slightly unconventional: there is journaling, fly-fishing, painting, and piloting an airplane, among other things. The young man quickly accepts Johnny as a new father figure to replace his ole dad. ![]() Johnny, who turns out to be an ex-pro golfer, convinces Luke to hang around for a week and train under him. ![]() Utopia is meant to be a reassuring small town, but many viewers may find it more along the lines of “The Village” (2004) or “The Wicker Man” movies. Despite the fact that Hispanics now make up 37 percent of the Texas population, there are non-white people in Utopia, and everyone goes to the same church. The place is presided over by patriarch Johnny. Luke speeds off from his meltdown and winds up stranded in Utopia, Texas, population 375. Spending many Sundays at the driving range with his father while his mother and sister went off to church was especially traumatizing for Luke as a boy. ![]() Dad, we learn from a series of flashbacks, has pushed Luke way too hard since childhood toward golf greatness. The young golfer Luke Chisholm (Lucas Black) has a televised meltdown on his dad (Joseph Lyle Taylor). The film’s mantra, as put forth by golf-guru-with-a-murky-past Johnny Crawford (Robert Duvall) is “see it, feel it, trust it.” This is known as STF, the acronym Johnny scrawls on his golf balls for good measure.īased on the 2009 bestseller “Golf’s Sacred Journey: Seven Days at the Links of Utopia,” this film, a disappointing debut from director Matt Russell, builds from a classic father–son conflict. This is serious golf, golf as a spiritual practice, in a movie more in tune with “The Legend of Bagger Vance” (2000)-but with no “magical” blacks in sight and with very explicit Christian message.Īccording to this film, there are more important things in life than golf: reading the Good Book, attending church, believing in God’s plan. Seven Days in Utopia is the first big golf movie in years, but it bears no relation to popular golf comedies like “Caddyshack” (1980) or “Happy Gilmore” (1996). ![]()
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