Clint Eastwood, ridiculed in real-life performance-art politics, turns in an ironically seasoned and mature performance as an old coot baseball scout in Trouble With The Curve. The possibly very real dotiness the empty chair worshipper recently displayed in Florida, is only make believe here. He faces bigger battles with macular degeneration and a resentful daughter (Amy Adams) who against her better judgment comes to his aid while he’s on an important scouting assignment. Eastwood, 81, takes the scurrilous malcontent character he played in Gran Torino to another level. Often dangerously close to cartoonish, he does a commendable jog of reigning it in. Corniness and cloying script turns rely on a solid chemistry between Eastwood and Adams to close the game. Ultimately a winner, the movie plays better if you leave your common sense in the lobby.
WIsely released a few weeks before, but not during, the Major League Playoffs, Trouble With The Curve (directed by first-time director Robert Lorenz) should harbor no illusions regarding the identity of its director. No one should mistake it for Mystic River or Million Dollar Baby. Yet it’s a bona fide treat to watch the always underrated actor Eastwood. His scenes with Adams, who’s a delight here, resound with authenticity and keep the entertainment quotient high. She plays a lawyer who despite an imminent big case that could very well decide her being made a partner, decides to surprise her dad, while he’s on an equally important mission that could decide his own job fate. Turns out she knows a lot of baseball, which despite her dad keeping his distance as she grew up, seeped into her consciousness. Justin Timberlake plays a cocky scout who’s along to provide a romantic interest. Despite his charisma to burn, the cheesiness of his scenes with Adams serve to highlight the comparative quality of her scenes with Eastwood.
The baseball stuff here tries big stretches of our patience, yet also is not without a certain winsomeness. The reliable John Goodman is Eastwood’s director of scouting and friend and protector. They both fight what seems a losing battle with the technological changes in scouting, represented by a new breed of scout who would rather digest stats online than attend games. Painted in large strokes just short of paint-by-number, the film adds a laugh or a dramatic insight soon enough to cure our indigestion. When cliches sting like gopher balls, good old fashioned charm throws a welcome changeup. If the film just misses the playoffs, it’s not due to its Hollywood ending but its sometimes painful play by play.
3 Wizened Old-Time Ballpark Mafiosos (out of 5)