(dir. Robert Lorenz, 2012)
“Trouble
With The Curve” might not add up to much more than the sum of its parts, but to
enjoy it, you don’t exactly need to be smart enough to understand math anyway.
It’s
a sports movie. And it’s predictable. But you know what other sports movies are
predictable? Almost EVERY OTHER SPORTS MOVIE. Who cares? When it works, it
works. And when your movie is anchored by a performance as undeservedly
committed as Clint Eastwood’s, forgiveness is doted out in easy supply.
Eastwood,
acting for another director for the first time since 1993’s “In The Line Of
Fire,” turns in one of those roles where his grunting practically functions as
a line of dialogue when you can feel the screenwriter hit a wall. As Gus, he
is an aging talent scout for the Atlanta Braves who isn’t ready to admit that
his increasingly poor eyes are being replaced by computer systems (here is a
movie where a character referring to the “interwebs” doesn’t just feel like a
cheap joke).
His
daughter Mickey (Amy Adams), worried about her father’s health, accompanies him
on a scouting mission to spot a hot young high school player in Asheville,
despite a major case looming ahead in her law firm. In the meantime, she falls
for Justin Timberlake, as a former Red Sox pitcher, now a talent scout himself,
nursing the wounds of his lost career. And John Goodman shows up too, because
who’s gonna say no if he does.
You
ask, will Eastwood’s old school scouting methods beat modern computer programs?
Will Timberlake and Adams prove a perfect match? Will the nice baseball players
triumph while the mean ones get cast aside?
It’s
cute that you use so many question marks. Every plot point is telegraphed a
mile away (spoiler: It’s no accident the poor kid selling peanuts can throw a
bag really hard). Once you realize the movie will massage every desire for
comeuppance and victory you have, it’s just a matter of settling into the
groove and waiting for those resolutions to arrive.
Seeing
“Trouble With The Curve” with a packed audience the day after seeing “The
Master” with a crowd of 10 or so at a press screening, I’m reminded of the
importance of Roger Ebert’s fundamental law: “A movie is not what it’s about,
but how it’s about it.” Would I have seen this movie in a similar private
setting, I almost definitely would have felt lukewarm. Its predictability
becoming more blatant. Its mawkishness more skin crawling. Its multiple happy
endings more shameless.
Those
are simply the ingredients, and they have been described appropriately. There’s
also a word to describe its methods, though, and that word is “warm.” Just
because a movie doesn’t appeal to me directly doesn’t mean it automatically
loses value when it connects to the rest of that packed crowd so thoroughly.
What
this movie brings to the table, largely thanks to the performance of Eastwood,
is credibility. It means what it says.
There’s an early scene when Eastwood
visits the grave of his wife, pours her half a beer, and starts reciting the
lyrics to “You Are My Sunshine.” Sounds silly on paper, and indeed, you can
feel yourself twitching to hold back chuckles when it starts. “Trouble With The
Curve” does not share our appreciation for irony. And by the end of the scene,
Eastwood and director Robert Lorenz wear us down, armed with nothing but conviction.
It’s
like a goony looking date you agree to see a second or third or seventh time
because he’s persistent. You could do worse.
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