Review of Trouble with the Curve (2012) by David H — 27 Jan 2013

Trouble with the Cheese.

In Trouble with the Curve, we experience Clint Eastwood progressively getting older over the course of his previous movies about him being old. This also means and escalation in what is becoming trademark-able growling. In this film, he is losing his vision, likely to glaucoma, but he depends on his senses for the only thing he chooses to have left in his life, scouting baseball. Grr.

He has an estranged daughter, Amy Adams, that somehow also knows baseball really well (it's in her blood too) despite her account of how she basically only spent one year with her father in her whole life because he pawned her off on relatives and boarding school before college. I guess that was a really formative year for her because she was able to develop otherwise useless senses for baseball and help her dad out now that he can't see so good.

Holy crap! Who knew Justin Timberlake was going to be in this? He's normally actually pretty good and typically well-cast, but it was all wrong from his character's extremely awkward (and kinda creepy) first introduction to the cheesy end.

The story is pretty simple. Everyone is in town to scout one particular jack ass who can allegedly hit anything. We also meet a peanut boy who throws a sack of peanuts faster than anyone has ever seen ;) I wonder if we'll ever see him again later. JT is a fallen player who I think was discovered by Eastwood's character, is now on his first scouting assignment. Amy Adams sets her booming legal career aside for a week to help her dad that she kinda hates. Eastwood just needs to make it 3 more months to get his retirement.

At this point, I would like to just say that this production had elements to be a great film, but it was all botched in the writing and execution, resorting to cliche after cliche (the names and events have been changed to fool you) and unforgivable handling of a great cast. Eastwood sings "you are my sunshine" and it's like rusty nails on a chalkboard and it's just not something Clint should do. Perhaps that is what should make it so powerful, but he should have recited a poem or recounted a powerful memory, not sing/growl. In another key moment of shame, Timberlake strips down to his boxers and jumps into the conveniently placed lake. Amy Adams laughs and like claps her hands more than once like an idiot to react to him jumping into the water. This completely betrays her character.

In the end, everything works out like you would expect, so if you want to see Clint Eastwood act his age and growl and/or see good actors in embarrassing situations, I highly recommend this for you. If you just want to see Eastwood being old, then Gran Torino is the film for you. For a great film about baseball that you can like even if you hate baseball, check out Brad Pitt's Oscar-nominated performance in Moneyball.