Cobb (1994)
69%RT Audience Score: 58%
Awards & Nominations: 1 nomination
Tommy Lee Jones’s searing performance helps to elevate Cobb above your typical sports biopic; he’s so effective, in fact, that some may find the film unpleasant
If you’re looking for a movie that will make you feel like you’re watching a documentary about the life of Ty Cobb, then Cobb is the movie for you. Tommy Lee Jones gives a performance that will make you believe he’s the real Ty Cobb, and the close study of a single day in his life is a refreshing change from the typical biopic. However, if you’re looking for a movie that will make you feel good about the game of baseball, you might want to look elsewhere. Cobb is a raw and audacious look at the darker side of American athletics, and it’s not always an easy watch. But if you’re up for the challenge, it’s definitely worth checking out.
Production Company(ies)
Mass Distraction Media, Radical Media, Vulcan Productions,
Distributor
NA
Release Type
Theatrical
Filming Location(s)
Cooperstown, New York, USA
MPAA / Certificate
Rated R for strong language, and for scenes of nudity and violent behavior
Year of Release
1994
-
Color:Color
Black and White -
Sound mix:Dolby Digital
-
Aspect ratio:2.35 : 1
-
Runtime:NA
-
Language(s):English
-
Country of origin:United States
-
Release date:Release Date (Streaming): Sep 2, 2003
Genre(s)
Biography
Keyword(s)
starring Tommy Lee Jones, Robert Wuhl, Lolita Davidovich, Lou Myers, Stephen Mendillo, Will Utay, directed by Ron Shelton, written by Al Stump, produced by David V Lester, biography, box office performance, budget, reviewed by David Ansen, Gene Siskel, John Hartl, Michael Sragow, Jay Boyar, Michael Wilmington, Ralph Novak, Candice Russell, Dan Webster, Stephen Hunter, David Sterritt, Tom Hutchinson, R-rated, Ty Cobb, Al Stump, baseball, sports biopic, Tommy Lee Jones’s performance, sordid details, American athletics, raw, inspired, audaciously funny, unexpected, moving, Patton, Citizen Kane, Melvin and Howard
Worldwide gross: $1,007,583
Worldwide gross (inflation-adjusted): $2,038,467
Worldwide gross ranking (inflation-adjusted): 2,414
Worldwide tickets sold (est.): 222,297
US/Canada gross: $1,007,583
US/Canada gross (inflation-adjusted): $2,038,467
US/Canada gross ranking (inflation-adjusted): 2,029
US/Canada opening weekend: $63,786
US/Canada opening weekend (inflation-adjusted): $129,047
US/Canada opening weekend ranking (inflation-adjusted): 1,837
Budget and Earnings Details
Production budget (est.): NA
Production budget (inflation-adjusted): NA
Production budget ranking: NA
Marketing and distribution budget (inflation-adjusted est.): NA
Box office net earnings to date (inflation-adjusted est.): NA
ROI to date (est.): NA
ROI ranking: NA
Robert Wuhl – Al Stump
Lolita Davidovich – Ramona
Lou Myers – Willie
Stephen Mendillo – Mickey Cochrane
Will Utay – Jameson
Director(s)
Ron Shelton
Writer(s)
NA
Producer(s)
David V. Lester
Film Festivals
Awards & Nominations
1 nomination
Academy Awards
All Critics (48) | Top Critics (20) | Fresh (31) | Rotten (17)
Cobb is a refreshingly spiky antidote to all the Hollywood paeans to the glory of the game.
February 21, 2018
David Ansen
Newsweek
TOP CRITIC
Most biopics mistakenly try to take us from cradle to grave and end up skimming the surface. The wisdom of Cobb is that writer-director Ron Shelton knows that the close study of a single day can decode a human life.
May 6, 2014 | Rating: 3.5/4
Gene Siskel
Chicago Tribune
TOP CRITIC
Unfortunately, the movie just makes Stump look like a self-important jerk, possibly a bigger jerk than Cobb, and Wuhl’s affable, weightless performance doesn’t help.
May 6, 2014 | Rating: 2.5/4
John Hartl
Seattle Times
TOP CRITIC
Cobb cuts right through the winner-take-all ethos of American athletics. It’s a raw, inspired, audaciously funny, and unexpectedly moving collaboration between the writer-director Ron Shelton and Tommy Lee Jones.
March 19, 2013
Michael Sragow
New Yorker
TOP CRITIC
Ty Cobb is such a towering figure in this motion picture that it’s easy to overlook Al Stump — and Robert Wuhl’s feisty, witty performance in the thankless role.
March 19, 2013
Jay Boyar
Orlando Sentinel
TOP CRITIC
[Jones] lets it all loose here. It’s the performance of a lifetime: full of menace and venom, eloquence and fire, rot and pathos, crackling rawness and realism.
March 19, 2013 | Rating: 4/4
Michael Wilmington
Chicago Tribune
TOP CRITIC
A curiously gripping amalgam of Patton, Citizen Kane and Melvin and Howard.
May 6, 2014
Ralph Novak
People Magazine
To watch Tommy Lee Jones re-create the persona of the Hall of Famer in Cobb is to encounter the greatest SOB ever to come down the pike — in or out of the domain of sports. The trek is hardly entertaining.
May 6, 2014
Candice Russell
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
While the story of Cobb himself is a worthy one (Shelton’s treatment, believe it or not, even has its similarities to Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane), Shelton shortchanges the very game that made the man famous.
May 6, 2014
Dan Webster
Spokesman-Review (Washington)
Stump is well-played by affable Robert Wuhl, who has the unenviable responsibility of representing the one sane man in Ty’s crazy universe.
March 20, 2013 | Rating: 3/4
Stephen Hunter
Baltimore Sun
Cobb’s accomplishments on the ball field would make for an absorbing documentary, but it’s the passions and pitfalls of his private life that dominate Ron Shelton’s melodramatic film.
March 19, 2013
David Sterritt
Christian Science Monitor
Ron Shelton, whose Bull Durham and White Men Can’t Jump were jokey tales of disillusionment set in the sporting world, here redefines the life of an idol with a certain honest savagery.
March 19, 2013 | Rating: 4/5
Tom Hutchinson
Radio Times…
Plot
Al Stump is a famous sports-writer chosen by Ty Cobb to co-write his official, authorized ‘autobiography’ before his death. Cobb, widely feared and despised, feels misunderstood and wants to set the record straight about ‘the greatest ball-player ever,’ in his words. However, when Stump spends time with Cobb, interviewing him and beginning to write, he realizes that the general public opinion is largely correct. In Stump’s presence, Cobb is angry, violent, racist, misogynistic, and incorrigibly abusive to everyone around him. Torn between printing the truth by plumbing the depths of Cobb’s dark soul and grim childhood, and succumbing to Cobb’s pressure for a whitewash of his character and a simple baseball tale of his greatness, Stump writes two different books. One book is for Cobb, the other for the public.
Trivia
Goofs / Tidbits
Tommy Lee Jones’s performance as Ty Cobb is described as “searing” and “the performance of a lifetime.”
Ron-Shelton.jpg
