Trouble indeed--with the movie, with the writing and direction most of all

Rating: 4/10 (17 September 2013)

Trouble with the Curve (2012)
It might be that Clint Eastwood deserves credit for growing old less than gracefully, stumbling a bit, his eyes fogging, and insisting on being a chauvinist even with his talented daughter (played by Amy Adams). His role here is not especially attractive, though it does carry the typical touch guy attitudes that are essential to his character (and seen in other recent movies where he stars such as "Gran Torino").
However, this small, predictable tale is not directed by Eastwood, and I'm amazed to hear myself say I wish it had been. It would have lifted it up a little, at the very least, and this needed all the help it could get. Several stellar actors and a theme as warm and fuzzy as apple pie are wasted here in what is a simplistic, linear, disappointing exercise.
So who is here? Wow, take John Goodman and Justin Timberlake as secondary characters. Both play "themselves" to a large degree, Timberlake squandered the most by making him a restrained pretty boy and little more. Throw in Adams in her main role, a bit hampered by some lame writing but chipper enough. She is meant to be damaged goods from a bad childhood, and has put career (as a lawyer) over happiness. You know this will crack one way or another.
And then Eastwood as the driving force even as he is supported, almost literally, by these other three. As a legendary baseball scout with a "feel" for the game, including its sounds and subtle hints of talent and flaws, he is the opposite of the main character in "Moneyball," Billy Beane, who used computers to assess baseball talent. Unfortunately, "Moneyball" came out one year before this one and is a first-class movie top to bottom, making "Trouble with the Curve" even more insufficient. You might even think this was a cheap try at cashing in on the interest in the theme.
The fact is, the theme--judging baseball talent in human ways--is only superficially explored, and then mostly in the last part of the film when the other themes have taken front seat. These other aspects are equally thin, however--an obvious and thin romance, a reconciliation between daughter and father (with no real work, just a need to fill out the script), and finally a redemption in the old ways of baseball. The end to the movie, which I hardly need to disguise, is pure, sappy, stuff that makes even "Field of Dreams" look complex and realistic.
Skip this one. If you like baseball, you'll want to skip this one even more. I love the game and found this belittling and cheap. And a lousy movie.