'Seven Days in Utopia' makes the cliche enjoyable“Seven Days in Utopia” has all of the sports movie clichés: the angry sports star who is off his game, the over the hill sports guy who mentors him, the cute small town girl who falls for the first person from out of town that she sees and that every small town has and the hot-headed punk who is angry because the sports star is moving in on his turf. If dance is classified as a sport, “Footloose” features many of those elements as well.
The thing is with sports movies, you always get the same story. It is the cliché that makes them work even when there are members of the audience who want to see the jock fail, not get the girl and be run out of town on a rail. That just isn’t how sports films work, and in this case, that’s okay. Robert Duvall definitely shines as the cranky old guy who teaches golf in a mysterious way. His wisdom and his way of teaching are both expected and unexpected. The best advice that he gives is |
to bury the lies that we have been told and to take the truths we have learned with us.
There are two places that the film could have ended that would have been a good sports ending, but it goes almost all the way to the expected end and leaves the viewer hanging, which again worked for it. “Seven Days in Utopia” features decent acting, a decent cast and a decent story. In spite of the clichés, or maybe because of the clichés, it was good film that provided an uplifting message of hope along with a few words of wisdom. |
Read about other truths in "Seven Days in Utopia"