Trouble With The Curve

It's always interesting going to a Clint Eastwood movie. At the showing I went to Friday night there were several older women fangirling over him. It was pretty amusing. I mean, I'm a big fan of his work and while I have a thing for older men even I have a limit. Moving on.

In Trouble With The Curve, Clint Eastwood plays Gus, an aging baseball scout for the Atlanta Braves who's losing his eyesight. And while he keeps this a secret from everyone, the people around him can tell something is wrong. A friend of his named Pete (John Goodman), who also works in the organization, is worried and convinces Gus' estranged daughter Mickey (Amy Adams) to go with her father on one last trip to scout a promising young player. Of course, Gus isn't to thrilled about this. He and Mickey obviously have issues. Along the way they run into Johnny, a young former player whom Gus had scouted but due to an injury no longer plays and now is a baseball scout himself. Johnny really respects and admires Gus and eventually is attracted to Mickey (of course).

While I enjoyed this film for the most part, this is not Clint's best role. Don't get me wrong, his performance was good, it's just he's such an accomplished actor and I've seen him do better. The best part of the movie for me was his scenes with Amy Adams (whom I've been a fan of since I saw her in Enchanted). They had such great chemistry and I enjoyed seeing them interact with each other. You really felt like they were father and daughter.

I even enjoyed Amy's scenes with Justin Timberlake. Very sweet. Honestly I think I like him more as an actor than I do a singer.

I assumed for the longest time that Clint directed this (since lately he's only appeared in movies that he dircted) but as it turns out it was dircted by Robert Lorenz. He's worked on many movies with Clint over the years, but this is his first time directing. And considering this, I think he did an okay job.

There are some flaws with the movie however. The dialog at times was absolutely terrible. The plot was pretty predictable. And I wish they had gone and developed certain storylines better. I won't spoil anything, but towards the end there's this kind of big reveal that just comes out of nowhere. Well, maybe not nowhere but they never really gave much indication earlier in the film.

Overall though, I had a good time watching this. I think if you're a fan of baseball and/or Clint Eastwood you'll like this. Everyone else, maybe not. I'd still give it a chance though.

My Rating: 7/10