When he was in pre-production on "The Greatest Game Ever Played," somebody must have told director Bill Paxton that the only thing duller than playing golf ("a good walk spoiled," said Mark Twain) was watching golf on TV. Whether or not that person was correct, Paxton looks to have take the warning to heart, turning "Game" into the equivalent of a Jerry Bruckheimer-produced golf movie, with a visual style dominated by computer enhancements and a restless camera. Hyperkinetic aesthetics aside, though, "The Greatest Game Ever Played" fits squarely into Disney's recently established tradition of underdog sports movies, not quite as good as "Miracle" or "The Rookie," but somewhat less mawkishly sentimental than "Remember the Titans."

It's 1913 and Francis Ouimet (Shia LaBeouf) has already set aside his dreams of playing professional golf. A former caddie and respected amateur, Francis, who grew up with a course literally in his backyard, has realized that golf is a sport for the upper classes. On the advice of his immigrant father (Elias Koteas), Francis has buried his aspirations and is seeking a career in retail. Everything changes when Francis is given the chance to play in the U.S. Open and finds himself in a showdown with British legend Harry Vardon (Stephen Dillane), who literally wrote the book on golf. In the opinion of screenwriter Mark Frost, adapting his own book, their playoff became the greatest game ever played.

There has been a recent run of films -- including "Miracle," "Seabiscuit" and "Cinderella Man" -- to try to make the argument that in times of economic desperation and depression, a sporting icon was able to bring America together and teach people how to live and love again. Thankfully, "The Greatest Game Ever Played" makes no claims that the nation rallied around Ouimet or that he changed the course of history beyond his sport. His thesis, probably at least somewhat supportable, is that class and nationalistic issues helped contribute to the drama of the moment, but that the Vardon-Ouimet match was mostly just a darned good moment for golf. It's a refreshing difference.

"Game" is a psychological profile of the events that brought a young man and an older man together on the links for a couple days in 1913 and the demons -- depicted and imagined -- that drove them. Ouimet has a chip on his shoulder from both his father, who just doesn't want his son to get hurt, and from the society types who don't want to admit him into their club. As a new American, he sees golf as a means of upward social mobility and acceptance, not as a path to riches. Rather than just being a stock villain, a one-dimensional adversary, Dillane's Vardon is equally rich and equally governed by his inferiority complex. As the son of a laborer, no matter how much money he makes and no matter how much glory he brings to England, Vardon knows that he'll never really be respected by nobility. He knows he's their puppet. Actually, the final showdown is a lot like the end of "Rocky IV," where both men realize they're fighting for more than themselves, whether they like it or not.

Accompanied by properly Copland-esque score by Brian Tyler, Paxton skillfully plays his underdog hand, matching Vardon and Ouimet up against doubters from both sides of the Atlantic. There are enough snobby Brits and Americans to lend ample sympathy to the salt-of-the-earth blue collar strivers and the period depiction is flawless. Even without cutting to Averages Joes glued to their radios/telegraph machines/newspapers around the country (as Ron Howard seemed to do over and over again in "Cinderella Man"), Paxton makes the stakes clear.

His challenge is to make viewers care about golf. It's taken Tiger Woods to convince many people that golf is a sport and that its practitioners are athletes, but Paxton uses technology to push the point that golf is also exciting. The director and his team of effects artists throw everything imaginable at the screen. Sometimes it's just a matter of giving a golf ball a point-of-view, soaring inexorably toward the pin, making viewers puke up their popcorn. Paxton also uses effects to show the single-minded concentration with which Ouimet and Vardon picture every hole. Every sound of a club cutting through the air is enhanced, as with the "thwack" of club-on-ball and the "woosh" of a ball taking flight. Because even scoring in golf is a tiny bit stagnant, the progress of a round is tracked on a tote board whose numbers clatter and spin like a flickering train station arrival schedule. Is it overkill? Certainly, but the gumption is admirable.

Even if Paxton wasn't throwing everything in his arsenal at the screen, the performances could probably sustain the drama. LaBeouf cuts a sympathetic figure and "Game" may prove a validation for that entire season of "Project: Greenlight" where his potential for mega-stardom was topic for endless conversation. Dillane, whose 1998 Uncle Vanya at London's Young Vic is the greatest piece of theater acting I've ever witnessed, has a wounded pride that radiates through even when he isn't speaking. It takes a while to get used to the realization that Koteas' accent is more Quebecois than French, but he's central to the emotional punch of the end.

Given the reaction at my screening, the film's breakout might just be Josh Flitter as Francis' pint-sized caddie Eddie. With a face and voice that suggest a Florida retiree more than a pre-teen, Flitter is the film's comic relief, delivering sage advice and quippy slogans while lugging a bag twice his size. Given the emotional baggage that Ouimet and Vardon have to carry, it's a refreshing character.

Working on a far larger scale, Paxton's second directing effort is as crowd-pleasing and broad as his debut, "Frailty," was gothic and disturbing. It's a celebration of golf and of the underdog, with a warm and fuzzy message that mostly doesn't get obscured by the heavy-handed touches.