text: Ty Cobb is, by far, the most interesting and belligerently insane athlete to ever live. His baseball career was unparalleled in absurd statistics, brilliant strategy, and pure unadulterated violence. Every game he played in was a spectacle in human ability and cruelty. So of course, the film about him deals with none of that, instead focusing on the writing of his biography by author Al Stump. Now this isn't such a horrible idea in theory, as Cobb himself slid even further into paranoid dementia as years progressed and the stories of his crazed outbursts even as a senior are shocking even by today's desensitized standards. But instead of focusing on these events, which I guess was simply too interesting, the film is a pseudo fictionalized road film with clichéd a clichéd plot that will cause any knowledgeable Cobb fan to cry vinegar tears. <br /><br />Tommy Lee Jones does quite well as a crotchety Cobb, but somehow manages to overplay his cartoon supervillainy. Most stories about Cobb are barely believable, but to make him even crazier seems both impossible and unnecessary. Robert Wuhl, portraying the writer Al Stump, is a dark vortex of nonexistent talent. He sucks the life out of every scene, trying to make this film his own Nagasaki. There is a reason we never see him as a leading man anymore (Arliss doesn't count. It's barely a show). Even the played out, inevitable "role reversal" of Cobb and Stump by the end is made even worse by his pure inability to utter words that don't sound like a poor book on tape narration voice. <br /><br />For all the awful writing and bland film-making on display, there is one sequence which stands out as so far superior to the rest of this failure that accepting it's from the same film is near impossible. A hyper stylized flashback sequence displaying Cobb's overpowering psychology and brutal athleticism while actually playing the game of baseball is pure brilliance. The camera moves in bizarre fashion and the whole event seems like a dream due to the unique playing style of the monster Cobb. Every slide, hit, and tackle are rendered even more forceful due to enhanced sound, and Tommy Lee Jones OWNS the intensity of the master player. It makes the viewer drool over the possibilities of a true biopic of Cobb in his prime with the same actor. It's worth watching the film for this incredible few minutes alone, just to see what could have been. <br /><br />I may be slightly unfair to this film due to my own knowledge of Ty Cobb and wanting it to be something it isn't, but to make such boring, neutered movie about this maniac is nonsensical. I'm glad Ron Shelton's career has slid ever since.