Owen Wilson just amuses me.
Whether he's playing a beach bum in the Elmore Leonard-inspired The Big Bounce from 2004 or playing along with buddy Vince Vaughn in the huge hit Wedding Crashers, Wilson seems to always being playing his stock "awh shucks character," and yet the charm never fails to make me smile.
With his most recent role playing a washed-out professional golfer, he entertains with a limited comedy series The Guardian is calling "the Ted Lasso of golf."
I’ve never met a golfer in real life. I’ve always assumed I’m the wrong demographic – perhaps in terms of age, or class or at least tax bracket – or perhaps my lack of athleticism is so aggressive that it has prevented me from becoming friends with anyone with even the mildest sporting proclivity for all my life. Instead, I have essentially taken Mark Twain’s word for it that golf is a good walk spoiled, and gone about my days.
Now, however, I think golf may be the spoiler of a good new comedy drama. Stick, it’s called – a deadening name – and it stars Owen Wilson as washed-up golf pro Pryce Cahill. He had a televised meltdown during a tournament at the peak of his career (“He triple-bogeyed his entire life”) and is now reduced to selling golf kit, giving lessons to rich old ladies and hustling for cash in bars. He is also going through a divorce, and still living in the former marital home that his wife Amber-Linn (Judy Greer) – with whom he is still on good terms, bound as they are by a shared sorrow – now wants them to sell.
A golf course can make "fore" some great comedy going back to such classics as Caddyshack and Tin Cup, and while the mentor-prodigy can be a tired and cliched formula, Stick manages to stay fresh and clever and ultimately entertaining, especially with a great turn from Marc Maron as the wise, loyal, and sardonically jaded sidekick.
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