The CU Film Critic takes on "The Rookie"

Rating: Null/10 (2 March 2002)

People say `feel-good movie' like it's a bad thing. I say, if it rings true, and doesn't star Haley Joel Osment, a `feel-good movie' can be a great way to spend a couple hours.
`The Rookie' stars Dennis `Bring Me the Head of Russell Crowe' Quaid as Jim Morris, a longtime baseball fanatic whose major league hopes were dashed by some shoulder injury or another. At age thirty-seven, he coaches a high school baseball team in a Texas town that makes `King of the Hill' look like `Masterpiece Theatre.' After a game of catch, he discovers that since his shoulder surgery, he's able to pitch harder and faster than ever before (think `Rookie of the Year' but with facial hair). In order to encourage his struggling team, he promises them that if they'll buckle down and win a game or two, he'll follow suit by trying out for the major leagues.
Need I tell you how things are gonna go down?
What I'm liking about this is that it's a true story. Not being a baseball fan myself, I invited my baseball junkie father to the screening in order to get an insider's perspective. According to baseball trivia's Great One, they got everything with superb accuracy, right down to the fact that Jim Morris was a left handed pitcher. I was then treated to a tirade on the lack of attention to detail in `Field of Dreams.'
The characters, while flat, are played soulfully and with just the right script as to make us both fear and appreciate crazy old men from Texas. Every little kid in this movie is as cute- cute as a dozen baby ducks in tutus reciting `If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.'
This movie is great for those of us that sometimes need a reminder of how great our lives really are. After weeks and months of toil and mental anguish over the sport, Quaid's character finds himself watching a little league game, and remembering all the fun he'd somehow sucked out of his favorite pastime. The next day, he greets his teammates by asking, `You know what we get to do today? We get to PLAY baseball!'
`The Rookie,' much like `The Sandlot,' is a baseball movie that can be enjoyed by anyone- baseball fan or not. Also like `The Sandlot,' it reminds us that baseball was created for kids, and teaches by example by grabbing only the SECOND G-rating (in theatres) for the year 2002.

`The Rookie' gets a B. Would have been higher, but there are better baseball movies, if you want to look hard enough. Gotta be fair.