The Rookie

Review by Clint Morris

Like a loaf of multi-grain bread, The Rookie has traces of goodness, but for all intents and purposes, it is just another generic base.

Starring Dennis Quaid, The Rookie (not to be confused with the 1990 dud, that starred Clint Eastwood and Charlie Sheen) is the kind of small-town baseball drama that wants audiences to pluck tissue after tissue from their handbags as they experience the plight of it’s titular ageing underdog.

Instead, you’ll stay glued out of interest, but the tear ducts will be pretty safe.

Rough and gruff Navy chief (Brian Cox) moves his family from town to town while his son, little Jimmy, plays with a baseball mitt and is always getting yanked off his latest team just when it starts to win.

Mexico, their latest stop, doesn’t even have a baseball team – just how will his life unfold without the love or dream he has held onto for so long?

Fast forward to the president. Jimmy (Dennis Quaid) now coaches the Big Lake High School baseball team. He's married to Lorri (Rachel Griffiths), they have an 8-year-old, and he has all but forgotten his teenage dream of pitching in the majors.

Jimmy makes a fateful promise to his high school team: if they win district - he will try out for the majors again; and in turn, show everyone that magic curve-ball that people talk about.

The Rookie could be seen as several movies in one. The first part is the "ageing sports coach helps see his little league team to victory" effort, and the second is the "Rocky-esque predicament of a 'could have been pro' baseballer who gets a second shot".

If the two elements had worked more hand in hand with one another – as well as the elements of a "father never giving his son the time of day, or two damns about him" and a "wife who wants Dad to stay just that – Dad – and not Mr Baseball Star", the film might have worked better.

The movie's minute quality streams from Quaid. He’s immersing in any role he plays, and he seems at home here in the role of ageing underdog.

Brian Cox, as his father, is equally influential. Same can’t be said for Rachel Griffiths, pushed in the shadows and left to do very little as the token wife, except tear up whenever her husband has his shining moments and sit in the stands watching.

For a film that has several potential finales, The Rookie is a mixed bag. But, for the most part, it’s an entertaining enough look at someone who gets a second chance and struggles to cope with the change in status.

One just expected at least a couple of home runs...

3 out of 5

The Rookie
Australian release: Thursday October 17
Cast: Dennis Quaid, Rachel Griffiths, Jay Hernandez, Angus T. Jones, Brian Cox.
Director: John Lee Hancock.
Website: Click here

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