Well-acted, well-made and well-intentioned...but altogether unsatisfying

Rating: 5/10 (29 April 2002)

This is one of those movies that I can say is well-crafted, yet I can also say I was pretty bored through most of it. "The Rookie" is a Disney production, yet it doesn't have that Disney feel. And it doesn't feel G-rated either. In fact, this movie does a fine job at avoiding overused cliches in the genre of sports dramas and stands on its own two feet. The premise of a high school science teacher suddenly becoming a major league ballplayer seems a little far-fetched, but it's a true story! So I can't complain it was unconvincing. The performances are terrific. Dennis Quaid is good in virtually every movie he does, and he again delivers a subtle, convincing performance. Brian Cox is great as his workaholic father, who tries to convince him that there's more to life than baseball. Rachel Griffiths is perfectly cast as Quaid's wife, who also tries to discourage him from baseball. Though Griffiths is Australian, I don't think any American actress could've played her role better, and she perfectly dons a Texas accent.
I have few bad things to say about "The Rookie" other than it was long and dull. I didn't enjoy the overuse of country music on the soundtrack, though I know that it was used simply to give the movie a Texas feel. You can't expect the soundtrack to include Metallica! And though the movie does a pretty good job at avoiding cliches, there are still a few that exist. Like what I was talking about earlier, about Quaid's wife and father discouraging him from baseball. There's one scene where his Dad gives him a speech/monologue--standing inside the house, many feet away from his son--about how there's more to life than baseball. Done with his speech, he closes the door and goes back into the house. No "Goodbye son" or anything like that. Then he comes home and his wife gives him the same speech, only she goes outside to the porch to apologize to him minutes later and they give each other the "you were right, I was wrong" run-around. Another problem is the film takes too much time stressing the fact that Jimmy Morris is a brilliant pitcher. I think if the director cut out most of his pitching scenes, the movie would be about 85 minutes. Now, I love that scene in which he pulls off to the side of the road to practice pitching by throwing the ball towards a meter, which measures the speeds of passing cars. The meter reads 76 MPH. Then when he goes to pick up the ball, we watch as it changes to 96 MPH. Once we watch that scene, we already know that he's a brilliant pitcher, we don't need it pounded into our skulls. I don't even know how good of a batter he is, because they never show him at bat!
There's a good deal of things I give this movie credit for, but all in all it just doesn't deliver. Sure, it doesn't have the formula cliches of last year's "Hardball," but it also doesn't have the charm and fun of "Hardball." I wasn't uplifted, nor entertained, so this movie pretty much left me cold.
My score: 5 (out of 10)