Cobb (1994)

Critic Reviews

• Richard Schickel, TIME Magazine

  This is a messy movie, sometimes repetitive, sometimes too compressed and allusive. But that's like saying Ty Cobb was not a very good sport -- irrelevant in comparison to the horrific fascination of his story.

• Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

  It's such a potent and courageous wreck of a movie that it's worth more than most 'successes.'

• Leonard Klady, Variety

  It's unclear just how much sympathy we are to extend the unrepentant and bullying title character.

• Janet Maslin, New York Times

  Even allowing for the intentional excesses of such an episode, delicacy is a casualty here.

• Peter Stack, San Francisco Chronicle

  This histrionic portrait of the most celebrated cur in sports history comes across like a fly ball that thuds on the ground.

• Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

  Shelton's strong, stinging film -- one of the year's best -- wants to get at something ingrained in the American character: the irrational desire to make saints of sports heroes.

• Scott Nash, Three Movie Buffs

  The movie never equals the performance, but still fascinating to watch.

• Kim Newman, Empire Magazine

  Massively underrated.

• , Film4

  Director Shelton is a master at locker room drama, and helped by a towering performance of snarling egomania and drug-fuelled bitterness from Jones, he tackles the dichotomies of [Cobb] with engaging enthusiasm.

• , TV Guide's Movie Guide

  Tommy Lee Jones is superb in the title role, but writer-director Ron Shelton unwisely chose to structure the film as a two-character piece, thus placing undue attention on the lackluster character of Cobb's biographer, Al Stump.

• , Time Out

  Shelton's film is about the nature of truth and popular myth, about the single-minded pursuit of glory, and the horrors within. It's also very funny.

• Emanuel Levy, EmanuelLevy.Com

  Tommy Lee Jones gives an uncompromisingly volcanic performance as the psychotic bigot, one of baseball greatest players, known for his aggressive conduct, racism, and sexism.

• Chuck O'Leary, Fantastica Daily

  Completely enthralling from first frame to last, Cobb is a fascinating, uncompromising portrait of a rage-filled, contradictory man fighting his own private war with the world.

• Mike Barkacs, Bullz-Eye.com

  If you're looking for a sugary-sweet baseball hero story, this ain't it; but it is an entertaining story about a great ex-player who could make Albert Belle look like Mother Theresa.

• Walter Chaw, Film Freak Central

  Completely uncompromising in a way that films, especially sports films, just aren't.

• Jon Niccum, Lawrence Journal-World

  Despite Jones' performance, it's a disappointing biopic

Read all 16 critic reviews