Outstanding

Rating: 10/10 (8 September 2002)

With `The Straight Story' and now `The Rookie', the Walt Disney Company is quietly putting together a series of quality films that transcend any expectations associated with the company while remaining wholesome, astute and committed. They're doing this by pairing talented filmmakers and actors with uncommon but inspiring true stories that have natural, universal conflicts built into them and the results are intelligent and moving. In this case, John Lee Hancock directs a beautifully convincing Dennis Quaid as Jim Morris, the Texas high school baseball coach who reached the major leagues in his late thirties. Hancock perfectly combines the simplicity of small town Texas life with the mythic purity of baseball and manages, almost innocently it would seem, to make every cliché seem fresh and believable; he has faith in the material (the well-thought screenplay is by Mike Rich) and in the audience's ability to see past the aspects of the plot that they've visited before. This applies all the way down to the typical strained father-son relationship sports films usually center on: using brief but incisive dialogue and the passage of time, Morris and his Navy father (Brian Cox) quietly spar with each other, struggling to achieve détente and the payoff is heartfelt and gratifying. The understated Quaid is a mixture of childish awe at his baseball prowess and grownup regret as he despairs over not following his dream--it's a performance that should probably ring true in most adults and it's his most affecting since `Breaking Away'. Hancock is greatly assisted by his cinematographer, John Schwartzman, who cuts through the Texas dust to provide a straightforward visual sharpness (in contrast to Freddie Francis' offbeat Midwest images in `The Straight Story'); and the inimitable Carter Burwell, whose hushed score is poignant and always appropriate. An outstanding movie, one that should have no difficulty standing the test of time.