Continuing my plan to watch every Kevin Costner movie in order, I come to 1989's Field Of Dreams.
Plot In A Paragraph: Ray Kinsella (KC) an Iowa corn farmer, starts hearing voices, he interprets them as a request to build a baseball diamond in his crop field.
Is this heaven??
I don't like baseball, never have had even the slightest interest in the game, so why do I cry like a baby every time I watch Field Of Dreams??
I will admit from the off, I am bias. I love this movie. It is not just one of my favourite KC movies, it's not just my favourite movie of 1989 (and in a year that featured Last Crusade, Lethal Weapon 2, Batman, Back To The Future 2, Dead Poets Society and the classic Weekend At Bernie's, you know how high that praise is) one of my favourite movies of the 1980's, it's one of my favourite movies in general.
KC, Amy Madigan, Ray Liotta, James Earl Jones and Burt Lancaster are all perfect. Everything about this movie is perfect, not just the casting, the performances, the screenplay, the directing, the atmosphere and the score all knock it out of the park (yes pun intended again)
I will deliberately avoid talking about the movies ending (so I don't ruin it for those who have not seen it) but I cried like a baby when I seen it in 1990, and I have cried every time I have watched it since, and I watch it a couple of times a year. It doesn't matter if I sit and watch it all, or catch the last twenty minutes on TV, I will be in floods of tears. If I'm not already crying, the way KC's voice breaks, will do it!! EVERY TIME.
I read somewhere that the best motion pictures find meaning in not aspects of the story but rather in the underlying emotional core and heart that defines the story. Field Of Dreams is a perfect example of that saying. It's no surprise that Field Of Dreams is still entertaining and touching people regularly today (it plays regularly on TV in the UK) more than 25 years after its release.
A timeless classic. 10/10 for this reviewer.
