The Legend of Bagger Vance is a 2000 American sports film directed by Robert Redford, and starring Will Smith, Matt Damon and Charlize Theron. The screenplay by Jeremy Leven is based on Steven Pressfield's 1995 book The Legend of Bagger Vance: A Novel of Golf and the Game of Life. The film is set in 1931 Georgia. It was the final film starring Jack Lemmon and Lane Smith. The film was a box office bomb, grossing almost $40 million worldwideonly half of its budgetand received mixed reviews; it was criticized by several African American commentators and reviewers for employing the "Magical Negro" stereotype. Plot As a senior, having had his sixth heart attack while playing golf, Hardy Greaves (Jack Lemmon) contemplates how his late wife used to ask him why he kept playing "a game that seems destined to kill" him. Explaining his love for the game, the story begins with his childhood idol: Rannulph Junuh (Matt Damon). Junuh is the favorite son of Savannah, Georgia: a noteworthy golfer from a wealthy family; he and his beautiful girlfriend Adele Invergordon (Charlize Theron) seem to have it all. While serving as a captain in the U.S. Army during World War I, Junuh is traumatized when his entire company is wiped out in battle. Though he earns the Medal of Honor, he disappears after the war, returning to Georgia years later as a broken-down alcoholic. At the start of the Great Depression (circa 1930), Adele is trying to recover her family's lost fortune by holding a four-round, two-day exhibition match between Bobby Jones (Joel Gretsch) and Walter Hagen (Bruce McGill), the best golfers of the era, with a grand prize of $10,000, at the golf resort her family opened as the Depression struck. However, needing a local participant to gain local interest, a young Greaves (J. Michael Moncrief) speaks up for his hero, Junuh, prompting Adele to ask her estranged lover to play. Junuh is approached by a mysterious traveler carrying a suitcase, who appears while he is trying to hit golf balls into the dark void of the night. The man identifies himself as Bagger Vance (Will Smith) and says he will be his caddie. With Greaves as assistant caddie, Bagger helps Junuh come to grips with his personal demons and play golf again. When the match starts, Jones and Hagen each play well in their distinctive ways, but the disengaged