Lake Tahoe, 1 9 6 0. Sportswriter Al Stump arrives to the snow-covered cottage of Ty Cobb (74), considered "the greatest baseball player of all time", to write a biography about him. However, Cobb is impossibly arrogant, hates Jews, gays and blacks, and sometimes even shoots with his gun. He is dying from all sorts of diseases, including cancer, and thus wants Stump to write a propaganda book about him which will present him in best light for the world to remember him. They descend to Reno, where Stump meets a night club cigarette girl, Ramona. Stump accompanies Cobb, and finds out Cobb's daughter does not want to talk with her father. Cobb tells Stump his dad wanted to catch his wife cheating, so he sneaked up during the night at her window, but was shot by her lover. Stump is hospitalized and dies. Stump decides to keep the myth alive and praise him.
Excellent "Cobb" is a movie that is difficult to love. The reason lies in the terribly antisocial, exclusionist, unsympathetic and altogether bad person, the title character Ty Cobb. But this is used by director Ron Shelton to show the theme of disinformation, the rift between reality and myth in society, and the contemplation of the often American phenomenon where all the flaws of someone are forgiven, ignored or tolerated as long as he is considered successful. "Cobb" did not attract much audience because the people were expecting a typically positive sports biopic. But it's not a sports drama—it's a drama. Tommy Lee Jones is excellent in the leading role, playing Cobb so repulsively that it is maybe even too effective, but he is also able to be charismatic, funny, and even pitifully fragile at times. His extroverted performances is contrasted by the introverted, restrained performance by Robert Wuhl as his biographer Al Stump, who cannot stand him, which creates an even bigger contrast between their relations.
When a cigarette girl, Ramona, asks him why he can't just simply quit his job and leave Cobb, Stump gives this response: "Because he knows greatness! I wanna learn about greatness!" - "Greatness is overrated." Later, when Cobb forcefully takes Ramona to his hotel room, pushes her on the bed, lies on top of her, she is scared, but he just shoves a 1,000$ into her hand, and instructs her to tell everyone she had the best sex of her life with him. Cobb then stands up and sits on the bed, lowers his head, and deplores that he didn't have an erection for a long time: "It's been dead for two years!" This sums up Cobb's mythology making, where he constantly presents himself in much better light than he actually is. He does not care about accuracy, since he knows that he can simply push propaganda that whitewashes whatever flaw he has, and that future generations will remember a completely wrong, distorted, idealized version of him. The movie is long and overstuffed, but it is engaging, gripping and often fascinating to watch, and appeals that people should strive towards scientific objectivity much more often, and be more critical of whom they pick as their idols.
Grade:+++
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