Director Barry Levinson has given this baseball film an air of mystery and the supernatural which, although it's quite fun, (every time there's a flash of lightning, you know Redford's going to hit the ball about two miles) the classic scenes and set-pieces don't quite add up to a classic movie.

Certainly we are supposed to empathise with the leading character, although the film enters the realms of fantasy from the impossibly poetic opening scenes and never leaves them behind.

The dialogue is a tad daft, or at least it would be coming from the mouths of a weaker cast.

So thank goodness for actors like Redford, Glenn Close (as his farm-girl love), Barbara Hershey (as an 'angel of death' who delays his career by a decade and a half), Darren McGavin and Robert Duvall as greasy opportunists and, especially, Wilford Brimley as the coach.