Trouble with the Curve

Clint Eastwood films have that certain flavor about them in that his characters he plays are so crusty that he'd rather just shoot you than to look at you. You can especially see this trait in his last 20 or so years of making films when, you know, he's gotten older. When it comes to "Trouble with the Curve", his pattern hasn't skipped a beat.

Gus (Eastwood) is an aging, well known baseball scout with apparent eye problems. His vision has blurred in places of the sight range and can come and go, and he's just not willing to admit it. So when his good friend of 30 years, General Manager, Pete Klein (John Goodman) comes to visit him, he realizes all too well that his ability to scout could be in jeopardy. There is a new baseball player, Bo Gentry (Joe Massingill) that he wants Gus to scout as a number one pick, but is Gus up to the task?
Enters Gus' daughter, Mickey (Amy Adams). She gets a phone call from Pete to go with her dad to help with his eye judgment. Not having the best relationship with her dad, she reluctantly tries to help. She puts off her attorney position for a short while in order to do this. After they've seen a couple of games, Gus runs into Johnny (Justin Timberlake), a baseball player that Gus knew that left baseball to be a scout, because of a torn rotater cuff. Can Gus make the right call so he will be able to renew his contract in 3 months, or will he just be put out to pasture?

Others to round out the cast are Matthew Lillard as Phillip Sanderson, Robert Patrick as Vince, Bob Gunton as Watson, George Wyner as Rosenbloom, James Patrick Freetly as Todd, Scott Eastwood as Billy Clark, Peter Hermann as Greg, and Jay Galloway as Rigo Sanchez.

This was directed by Eastwood's longtime First Assistant Director, Robert Lorenz, who has a ton of assistant directing under his belt, but this is his first solo directing spot. Eastwood knows directing, so I'm sure he must have realized that Lorenz was ready to 'leave the nest', and he was correct. This being Lorenz's first directing project, he should excel from this point. This was written by virtual newcomer, Randy Brown, who has no other writing credits. This is amazing, because even though this wasn't an Oscar worthy screenplay, it's difficult to believe that Brown has no other writings. I've seen worse from seasoned writers. What a natural!

Eastwood plays a guy in his mid-eighties, and I believe he's basically the same age bracket,
so it's amazing he's still able to act as well as he can given the gruelling schedule in this business even if you're not doing the directing, although you know he had to have a certain amount of input. Nothing seems to get this guy down.

If you are an Eastwood fan, you'll revel, because this is exactly what you'd expect out of his performance-- the crusty, aging, bitter, cantankerous old guy that can be vulnerable given the situation. So even though we've down this road before, it's familiar territory that will have you cheering for this guy and wondering why.

Out of 4 stars: 3.5                      Rated: PG-13                       111mins.