"The Rookie": A Grand Slam!

Rating: Null/10 (29 March 2002)

Never knew anything about any sports or wanted to until my now twelve- and-a-half year old son reached the age when he started to teach me about the things he cared about and expected and wanted my enthusiastic sharing of his budding interests (that's when he was three). Baseball was on the list and remains there so it was a sure thing we'd see Dennis Quaid and Rachel Griffiths in "The Rookie" the day it opened.
The film is "based on a true story." How close to base it is I leave to the baseball fans who largely packed the theater tonight. The core is certainly true. Jim Morris, one-time major league hopeful, sidetracked by injuries largely reflected in the movie by occasional glimpses of a surgical scar, teaches science and coaches a forlorn high school team in the Texas Panhandle. With inspiring leadership the team wins a district victory but after Morris promised that he'd try to get a second crack at joining the Majors.
Of course he makes it and in the process we see that's he's a truly great husband and father. With a spouse as wise and lovingly supportive as Ms. Griffiths portrays I'd be too. Intergenerational conflict and bonding are thrown in - the whole film couldn't take place on the ball field. Dennis Quaid is superb in this role - a truly believable and totally likeable guy.
The sentimentality is appropriate for the story. It's never cloying but it is affecting. Kevin Costner in "For Love of the Game" probably reflected a more realistically identifiable ballplayer in a cynical industry. "The Rookie" can make you forget that major league ball is VERY big business. But that's fine since the focus is an appealing Jim Morris who has the kind of guts, really the gumption to employ an old-fashioned word, we all admire and few of us have.
As is so often the case, the film score signals and nearly overwhelms big, dramatic scenes. Tune it out and watch the expressions not only on Quaid's and Grifffiths's faces but also on their kids. The eight-year-old boy is wonderful.
The cinematography is excellent and there's a real sense of what living in a boom-and-bust region is like.
It doesn't matter if you're a sports nut or not, this is a really fine family film, one of the best I've seen in a while.
Score: 9/10