Movie Musings: The True Hero of Tin Cup
Hint: It’s NOT Kevin Costner
I watched this movie so that you don’t have to.
And while I’m saving you from it, I also want to take the time to clarify the true message of this movie and who its TRUE hero is.
Tin Cup wants you to fall in love with Kevin Costner’s character, Roy “Tin Cup” McAvoy, a talented golfer, good looking in a dirty Texas sort of way. He has this tendency of constantly trying to prove himself that we’re supposed to think is endearing. Apparently, many moons ago, this temper cost him a chance to qualify for the PGA Tour.
Today, he is a sweaty, drunk, washed up golf pro who, in lieu of $12,000 owed to a business savvy stripper (played by the lovely Linda Hart), gives her the deed to his business. He currently lives in a Winnebago with Cheech Marin.
On the flip side of this coin you have David Simms, played by the very handsome Don Johnson (of Miami Vice and Nash Bridges fame, although he may be most recently known as Dakota Johnson’s father, of Fifty Shades of Grey fame). David and Roy were best buddies in college and played together, but while Roy went the way of the peacock, David is now a very rich and successful professional golfer à la Phil Mickelson (who coincidentally, has a cameo in this movie but he looks SUPER baby young). David is legit famous and on the PGA tour, with a car worth more than Roy’s entire life. You think he’d be a huge dick about it. But no. He’s perfect. And that’s where we begin:
David offers Roy a job — In the first few minutes of the movie David pulls up to Roy’s driving range and you can literally feel the success oozing out of his smile. Cheech tries to pick a fight in Roy’s honor but instead David is like, “I honestly haven’t thought of Roy in years. But I’m a big celebrity now hosting a golf tournament and I know he’s down and out. We were buddies once and I’d like to offer him a job.” Classy.
Fuck you Cheech.
Roy begrudgingly accepts the offer to caddy for David in the golf tournament, but gets fired for showing off after David explicitly warned him not to. David is running a professional operation here he doesn’t have time for antics. Roy’s reaction? Throwing David’s golf clubs everywhere. A grown man. Throwing a tantrum. Because he’s immature and ruins opportunities handed to him.
David tries to help Roy spiritually — The trajectory Roy’s life has taken is due to his lack of a mental game. Golf is hard (believe me, I’ve tried. It was embarrassing) and if you’re always showing off, you’re eventually going to take a shot that doesn’t work out even when you’re good. Roy is always trying to show off. He does things for the wrong reasons. There’s a moment in the movie where he says
“When a defining moment comes along, you can do one of two things: Define the moment, or let the moment define you.”
Note to Roy: the moment seems to define you WAY more than you define it. For example, the plot of the movie is that Roy is trying to qualify for and win the U.S. Open (because he wants to impress and hopefully bang Rene Russo’s character not because he wants to clean up his life). He manages to make it through a qualifier when David shows up to the country club. Roy proceeds to talk shit: “David aren’t you scared of me? I told you I could do it,” but David essentially says, “I am totally on your side here. I hope you make it! But, you have got to stop playing chicken with the world.”
Roy’s reaction to that sound advice? Challenge David to see who can hit a golf ball the furthest. Now, you already know David has figured something out because of that great big million watt smile he flashes upon accepting this bet. No need to get into details but basically, David’s level head wins out. The terms of the bet? Winner gets the loser’s car. So David takes Roy’s car… only to return the shitty car a few scenes later since he was really only trying to prove a point. Point being: Roy lacks the capacity to get his SHIT together. David actively tries to help but he can’t help someone who doesn’t want to help himself.
And let’s be honest here: Roy doesn’t want to win the U.S. Open just for Rene Russo’s character. It’s because she’s dating David that this becomes an issue. So basically if it weren’t for David, Roy wouldn’t even be trying.
David = Motivation.
David is successful — Obviously money is not the only thing that makes people awesome. But personally I’d rather be taking golf and life advice from the guy who has proven time and time again he can succeed, than from the guy who has a habit of breaking golf clubs whenever things don’t go his way. In pretty much every scene where David and Roy are together, Roy will say something like “congrats on making par spineless asshole” And David will just smile and say something like “I will take 18 pars all day long.”
The climactic scene of this movie says it all. It’s the FINAL round of the U.S. Open. Roy hasn’t been 100% perfect with regard to the mental game, but he’s kept his shit together enough to be there. He and David are playing together. I don’t know golf terms but what I understood is that there is a guy already ahead of both of them and based on that guy’s score, David would have to try a very risky play that has a 98% chance of the ball landing in the water but might get him the win, OR he just plays it safe and is guaranteed at least 2nd place. Roy on the other hand, really is a great golf player and has put himself in the enviable position of having some room for error. He can try this difficult shot to win it outright, but even if he doesn’t get it he can “take a drop” and challenge the current winner in a playoff. David goes for the safe play and succeeds. Roy, very understandably, goes for gold, but unfortunately the wind works against him at the last second and the ball goes in the water. Fail. The sensible thing to do would be to try and win via Plan B. However, Roy decides to try for the impossible shot again. And again, and again, and again, a total of 12 times. Where Roy could have WON the U.S. Open given how good of a golfer he truly was, his ridiculous ego and lack of self-control got in the way. He insisted on making this shot in a showboating way. He ultimately does on the 12th try. But by then he’s lost the U.S. Open completely. Not in contention in any way for a significant amount of money and was actually almost disqualified.
Side Note: While we’re doing a character study, I’d like to point out that Rene Russo is BATSHIT crazy in this movie. Her character, Molly, is introduced as this calm, cool, collected psychologist asking Roy for golf lessons because she wants to be able to converse with her boyfriend, David Simms. She also appears to totally be able to see through Roy’s BS. Like when he tries to seduce her with some poetry about the spirit of golf, she’s not buying it.
But then as we get to know her, it turns out she like, followed a cowboy from Ohio to Texas, had bad luck as a real estate agent, became a therapist (incidentally, making it sound really easy to be a therapist. Like, she did it via the mails) and here she is. David is clearly the most stable boyfriend she’s ever had.
But in one moment when he did not want to sign some autographs (and was admittedly rude to the fans about it), Molly randomly loses her shit, challenges Roy to make some golf shot, and then dumps David. Not just that, but she actually keeps encouraging Roy to “listen to his feelings.” She’s like an 18-year old girl who was straight laced her entire life, and then meets Roy and is like “He’s so wild! And his wildness makes ME wild! I’m so ALIVE!” Little does she know that the college-boy-who-doesn’t-need-to-go-to-class attitude is sexy now, but in the sequel to this movie (which I just invented and shall call Silver Cup), Molly will wake up in about a week, post-amazing devil-may-care trailer sex and realize SHE IS IN A TRAILER because her boyfriend is a bum and she actually would like to take a nice vacation someday. Definitely NOT in a Winnebago with all of Roy’s friends.
The sad thing is, despite her egging Roy on to just be wild, Molly is totally THAT woman trying to fix the guy. While they’re celebrating a win at Waffle House she says, “Let’s go somewhere nice for dinner after your next win,” to which Roy replies, “what for?” Or, at the end of the movie, when she points out that because Roy finished in the top 15 he automatically qualifies for next year’s open and that they should use this opportunity to start to boost his career and get him on the tour. To which Roy says, “really?” and then “naaaah”.
She clearly wants something more.
It’ll never work Molly. He’ll always be a bum. You’ll always be in that trailer.
And in the end, David Simms did end up with prize money and going home with a blonde. Without a care in the world.
Winner.
Tin Cup: Rating R | Category: Comedy, Drama, Romance | Director: Ron Shelton | Writers: John Norville, Ron Shelton
