Seven Days in Utopia (Lucas Black, Robert Duvall, Brian Geraghty, Deborah Ann Woll) – Mr. Miyagi appears in the form of Robert Duvall as Uncle Johnny in a life lesson film about how there are bigger things in life than golf (or karate). When young junior champion-turned-Nationwide Tour pro Luke Chisholm (Lucas Black in yet another understated, ah-shucks role circa Friday Night Lights, Jarhead, and Swing Blade) melts down on the 18thhole of a tournament he is leading, he considers hanging up the clubs. Lost and despondent (well, as despondent as Black is capable of showing), he drives across Texas where he comes to a fork in the road, choosing to head to a town called Utopia. You can almost feel the power of God speaking to him (or is that pounding away at the audience). Suddenly, as if by fate, he comes over a rise and, faced with a cow in the road, he swerves, takes out a fence, crashes his car, and emerging unbroken but a little bloody, is found by an old man on horseback named Johnny. Johnny, along with his irascible (but really kind-hearted) wife, take the boy in. It is here that we learn that Johnny was a tour pro in the height of the Jack Nicklaus, Hale Irwin age whose drinking got the better of him. Now long retired from the game he loves, he has settled in Utopia ostensibly where he has found peace, love and truth.
From watching the Golf Channel, he witnessed Chisholm’s meltdown and knows that he can help the young man. So he makes Luke a deal: Spend a week in Utopia (while his car is being fixed) and he can turn his golf game (or is it his entire life?) around. At wit’s end, Luke agrees. Here is where Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita’s iconic role in The Karate Kid) comes in. Johnny has him paint (no, not the fence), tussle with the local boys (who don’t rightly like the new kid in town), and test his will in a rodeo. But what does this have to do with golf (or karate)? Eventually, he takes him to the local driving range and then the course where, miraculously, all of his skills come back.
Oh yes, and did I mention there is a girl, too? Sarah (how biblical) is a Utopia native (a Utopian?) who has everything she needs right there because she is learning to be a “horse whisperer.” (I didn’t know you could study that but the ability to connect with God’s creatures is apparently not simply a gift. I kept looking for a Robert Redford cameo.) Of course, she is the local beauty whose boyfriend (but he’s not really her boyfriend) is played by Brian Geraghty (The Hurt Locker) and is threatened by Luke. [I swear that Johnny is going to front-kick him into oblivion (please excuse yet another Karate Kid reference.]
By week’s end, Luke is redeemed. Three words now comprise his mantra: See, Feel and Trust. He puts SFT on his golf balls, on the grave where he buries his demons, and in his heart (spare me). And when Johnny tells him he pulled some strings and got him a sponsor’s exemption (a “free pass”) into the Texas Valero Open the next weekend, we can see the ending a mile away. Or can we? Is Luke’s winning the tournament the goal or is this about finding the inner truth and the meaning of life? Is there a higher power looking over Luke or is he at the mercy of the Golf Gods? Will Luke’s father, who pushed him to become a golfer and who forced him to hit the aggressive shots that cost him the previous tournament be forgiven?
These questions and more get answered in the film – well, mostly. Be warned: there is a cliffhanger ending. And to find out how it ends, you have to go to a website – seriously.
As you can tell, I felt suckered into going to the film by the golf theme, the title, and my lack of foresight to read either the reviews or about the book from which it is derived, “Golf’s Sacred Journey: Seven Days at the Links of Utopia.” For me, there was way too much spirituality and faith-based aura being pounded into my senses. But Duvall is great as always, even if he is falling into a rut playing the same character over and over these days. You know, the one with sage wisdom, a knowing laugh, and the voice of experience. Oscar winner Melissa Leo is wasted in the role of Sarah’s mother. Geraghty is too good a young actor to be playing this contrived antagonist role. Woll isn’t pretty enough to play the Elisabeth Shue role (whoops, another Karate Kid reference). And Black is simply not that talented although his golf swing looks mighty good.
See this at your own peril but don’t go for the golf (despite the unrelenting Callaway product placements and the cameos from the likes of Stewart Cink, Rickie Fowler and Rich Beem).