Somewhat problematic

Rating: 6/10 (15 May 2013)

An aging scout who looks like Clint Eastwood (who in real life, by the way, is over 80) is being pushed out of his job (hello, it's called retirement) and adopts an attitude of spunky rebelliousness, when in fact he can't do the job anyways because he's losing his vision. A movie premise based on a plot hole a mile wide is on some shaky ground to begin with. It doesn't help matters that every person who disagrees with him about retirement conveniently turns out to be an incompetent a-hole.
The film still has some nice moments and takes us moderately deeply into the universe of baseball scouting and going somewhere new is always interesting. At the same time, a more realistic film might have made us feel like we were actually experiencing the life of a baseball scout.
The film's other strong points are Amy Adams and Justin Timberlake. As someone who is not in the camp that Timberlake has previously displayed any acting skills, this is Timberlake's first role in which he could legitimately be called an actor. Amy Adams, who is always wonderful, showed here that she can actually be sexy on screen on top of all the other great character beats she bought with the character.