The Greatest Game Ever Played

Golf is a boring game to watch. I've never played it, and I think I'd be good at it, but watching it is horrible. Movies about golf are not though, I liked most of the ones I've seen, including The Legend of Bagger Vance and Happy Gilmore of course.
Now Disney brings us The Greatest Game Ever Played, Bill Paxton's directorial follow up to Frailty, his little seen but great horror movie.
Starring Shia LaBeouf, the movie is the true story of Francis Ouimet, a young man who was a caddy, was given a chance to play as an amateur despite being poor, and went on to win the US Open in 1913 against the top players in the world in one of the major upsets in sports history.

While I find Shia LaBeouf annoying most of the time for the way he talks, he does a great job in the lead here, playing against more experienced actors, and British ones which adds more class to the whole deal.
The other players we have are Stephen Dillane who plays the legend and favorite to win Harry Vardon, Stephen Marcus as the monstrous Ted Ray, and Michael Weaver as John McDermott, the only American with a chance and the current champion.

Elias Koteas plays Francis' father Arthur, a hard working man who doesn't want Francis to play golf as that won't give him any money to support his family. He will later change his mind and support his son of course but before that Koteas gives a very good performance. He did make me remember Daniel Day-Lewis' Bill The Butcher from Gangs of New York, from the mustache to the Scottish accent.

What makes the movie great is Paxton's camera, using CGI at many times but still getting great shots and visuals for very imaginative angles, like when he uses the ball-camera and we follow see everything as the ball that just got hit would see it.
The Greatest Game Ever Played is not the best ever, but it's a very good movie that doesn't get boring despite being 2 hours long, a bit too much maybe for a kids movie, but the movie works just fine, and it makes a fine addition to the Disney in Sports collection that such greats like Remember the Titans, The Rookie and Miracle are part of.