Review

Review Date: 8-September-02
Spoiler Rating: High
Juju Judgment: Juicy

The Rookie (2002)

The Rookie is a Disney movie. It's rated G. It's based on the true story of Jim Morris, a guy whose lifelong dream of playing major league baseball came true at an age when most men's dreams for the future involve IRAs, getting the kids out of the house, and acquiring younger mistresses. Is it corny? Yes. Is it idealized? Yes. Is it calculated to put a lump in your throat? Yes. But damn if it don't make you kinda warm and fuzzy.

Dennis Quaid (whose career was literally resurrected by this film) plays Morris, as nice and down home a fella as you'd ever want to meet. As we're told in flashbacks at the beginning of the film, he has wanted to be a major league pitcher since he was a young Army brat, traveling with his family from state to state before finally settling down in Big Lake, Texas. Although the talent is there, his dream has faced many obstacles, including a lack of encouragement from his distant father, a hometown with little interest in baseball during his teen years, and, finally, a shoulder injury. In the end, Morris has given up his dream and resigned himself to a non-glamorous life in Big Lake. The approach of middle age finds him with a wife, three kids, and a job as a high school teacher and baseball coach. (I think it's safe to say that if science teachers looked like that when I was in school, I would have taken much more interest in both chemistry and biology.)

The baseball team that Morris coaches (made up of an appropriate racial mix of ribald but kind-hearted youths) sucks, until the day when he delivers a fateful pep talk about believing in something and working towards it. The boys then issue a challenge: they will do their best to win the district championship, and he must promise to give the majors one more shot if they attain their goal. This sets up the inevitable (and true-life) payoff: the team turns itself around and accomplishes its goal, Morris keeps his end of the bargain, and, after some poignant wrangling with the adult responsibilities personified by his devoted wife, he finally makes his dream come true.

This is a slender story sustained by nostalgia, and it could have made for a really bad movie, or at least a movie which made my eyes roll and my stomach turn. But it stops short of being nauseatingly cutesy. The filmmakers seem to be genuinely in love with their subjects, not just Jim Morris, but also baseball, small town America, and the big Texas sky. They aren't just trying to cash in on sentimentality; they are honestly getting off on it, and therefore show it some respect. They have a good foundation in Quaid, whose craggy, handsome face and rough intensity make for a very likable hero. The folk-heavy soundtrack helps to move the action along, even during the extensive baseball scenes, which are served up with enthusiasm and a mercifully small amount of slo-mo. The secondary characters are all predictable and impossibly decent, but it's nice to spend time with them: your standard small town folk (kindly geezers, rowdy kids), the requisite moppet (Angus T. Jones as Morris' adoring son), big-bellied baseball bigwigs, and Morris' wife (Rachel Griffiths, who, though an Aussie, has the all-American, stand-by-your-man thing down).

Of course, by some irrefutable law of Americana, you can't have a baseball movie without a subplot of fathers and sons, so The Rookie returns from time to time to the strained relationship between Morris and his father (Brian Cox). This is the weak point of the film, since the effect of the father's sternness is never adequately connected to Morris' baseball career (or lack thereof). Nor are we able to understand fully why Morris feels so compelled to share the moment of his triumph (immediately preceding the It's a Wonderful Life ending) with his father, who hasn't given a damn up until this point in his life. But now I'm griping at powerful traditions that are beyond me. The bottom line is, The Rookie is a "feel good" movie that pulls all the strings you'd expect, but gently and without unnecessary yanks. Like a hot dog or a slice of apple pie, it's a sentimental little snack with lots of filler and little nutrition, but it kind of warms you up inside.

Copyright © 2002 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.