'Tommy's Honour' is a conventional movie about unconventional people
Golf isn鈥檛 the most galvanizing of subjects to make a movie about. The best one ever made, Ron Shelton鈥檚 鈥淭in Cup,鈥� starring Kevin Costner, got around that problem by being about a golfer while focusing on just about everything except golf.
鈥淭ommy鈥檚 Honour鈥� can鈥檛 quite pull off that ploy because it鈥檚 tasked with being about two of the founders of modern golf: Tom Morris (Peter Mullan), known as Old Tom, and his son, Tommy (Jack Lowden), known 鈥� for some reason 鈥� as Young Tom. Even so, director Jason Connery and his writers, Pamela Marin and Kevin Cook, attempt to invest the father-son dynamic with enough roiling conflict to satisfy even Eugene O鈥橬eill.
Old Tom, circa mid-19th聽century, is a groundskeeper and instructor at Scotland鈥檚 famous St. Andrews golf course. With a large family to feed, he鈥檚 mindful of his somewhat servile position with the hierarchy of upper-class twits who heed his golf advice without allowing him a club membership. Young Tom, a far more prodigious player than his father, does not want to end up a caddy and greenskeeper and rapidly becomes a champion who demands a much larger share of his winnings from the wealthy sponsors of his matches.
Connery (an actor as well, and the son of Sean Connery) keeps the performers honest, and a few of the father-son tussles, with their admixture of love and envy, are powerful. Most of the time, though, we鈥檙e watching a conventionally told movie about people who are anything but conventional. Grade:聽B (Rated PG for thematic elements, some suggestive material, language, and smoking.) 聽 聽 聽 聽
