Review: Jason Connery’s golf film Tommy’s Honour is two hours drearily wasted

If golf is a good walk spoiled, the handsomely shot but subdued period piece Tommy's Honour is two hours drearily wasted. Directed by Sean Connery's golf-loving son, Jason Connery, Tommy's Honour is a beard-y biopic of the 19th-century Scottish golf pioneer Tom Morris and his headstrong ball-whacking son, Tommy. Tom (played by the excellent Peter Mullan) is talented and innovative, but mindful of the class distinctions that prevent him from rising above his station as a caddy and groundskeeper to the "gentlemen" club members at St Andrews. His boy (portrayed by a watchable Jack Lowden) is dashing and unwilling to play by the rules, whether they apply to class rigidity or to a semi-scandalous romance. Although it's a kick to see the rough conditions and the full-on roughhousing of old-world golf, the scenes on the links are repetitive. And while the ending takes a severe dogleg turn to soft-focus sentimentality and the soundtrack hounds us to take this thing seriously, the movie is easily resistible.