Review of The Rookie (1990) by Maye Z — 25 Oct 2014

It wasn't until "Unforgiven" that Clint Eastwood gained a reputation for being a respectable filmmaker. Before that time, his projects were fairly hit and miss, and they were all pretty evenly divided into those two categories. As you may be able to determine from the forgettable title, "The Rookie" is not one of his better efforts, a lazy "Dirty Harry" clone full of tired cliches and even more tired writing.

Even Clint himself looks bored with this one. You can usually count on his hilariously grumpy quips and chemistry with his co-star, but all of that is in short supply here. In fact, there's such little character development and plot set-up that it feels like you walked in on the movie at the half hour mark.

Even the action, which is sometimes the only reason to see an Eastwood film from this era in his career, is lacking here. You get the standard shoot-outs and car chases, but for a movie dealing with grand theft auto, those are disappointing too. That speaks more to Eastwood as the director, and he doesn't appear to be too involved in this at that capacity either.

It's said he only agreed to make this so that Warner Brothers would let him make "White Hunter, Black Heart." It indeed feels like a throwaway project, but we should still should be allowed to expect more from the star. The villains here, played by Sonia Braga and Raul Julia, are quite unimpressive as well. There are a few laughs and a couple of mildly interesting action sequences in "The Rookie," but this will never be confused for one of Eastwood's better films. It feels more like an afterthought for the people involved.