One of Will Smith and Matt Damon‘s more controversial movies is officially available to stream beginning today on Paramount+.
What Will Smith and Matt Damon movie is on Paramount+ today?
The Legend of Bagger Vance, released in 2000, is officially available on Paramount+ now. The movie was directed by the late Robert Redford and written by Jeremy Leven, based on the 1995 Steven Pressfield book The Legend of Bagger Vance: A Novel of Golf and the Game of Life. Alongside Smith and Damon, the movie also stars Charlize Theron.
The movie follows the story of Rannulph Junuh (Damon), a once-promising golfer whose career was derailed by World War I. He meets the mysterious Bagger Vance (Smith), who offers to coach him back to greatness for an upcoming high-stakes match.
The movie released to mostly negative reviews, and is considered a box office bomb; the movie grossed just $39.5 million against an $80 million budget. The movie also garnered controversy for its plot, which featured Smith’s black coach helping to lift up Damon’s golfer.
Many considered the plot to be filled with black stereotypes, including that of the “magical Negro,” and Spike Lee infamously criticized the movie in 2001 during a visit to Yale, noting “blacks are getting lynched left and right, and [Bagger Vance is] more concerned about improving Matt Damon’s golf swing!”
“During the Great Depression, Georgia socialite Adele Invergordon announces a publicity-garnering high-stakes match at her struggling family golf course, featuring the greatest golfers of the era. Once-promising local golfer Rannulph Junuh, whose career and life were derailed by World War I, is brought in to play alongside the stars, but his game is weak — until the enigmatic Bagger Vance offers to coach him back into the great golfer he once was,” reads the film’s official synopsis.