Innovative Genius!? Nah.

Rating: 6/10 (13 April 2014)

You will know that Squint Eastwood plays a cranky old baseball scout. His friend, played by John Goodman, knows that evil (computer loving!) schemers on the team are trying to get rid of Squint, so persuades Squint's successful lawyer daughter to go help, despite her bad relationship with Dad. They encounter a charming young man that Squint had scouted. Oh, and it turns out there is a mysterious past incident in the father-daughter relationship.
So manipulative! So predictable! Still, the young woman was attractive and the young man was charming. John Goodman was now only fat and ugly, not grotesquely obese, but still charming and warm. Squint, surprisingly, was the weak link. He seemed to be doing a lot of ACTING as a cranky old man. But he already is a cranky old man, so it put him over the top.
Luckily, we were watching at home, and since it was so obvious, and not very serious to us, though ever-so-serious to the characters, it became sort of participatory, where we would boo and mock and cheer. So we got some fun out of it.
Now here's the thing. The movie revolved around the love of baseball that united all of our heroes. So, maybe Squint wasn't making a bad tear–jerker, far below his usual subtlety and skill, maybe he was using a movie to create a baseball-watching-like experience!? That would be pretty awesome. It would heighten and reflect the fictional themes past the fourth wall!
Nah.