Dennis
Quaid Tries to Turn Back Time Dennis
Quaid Tries to Turn Back TimeThe Rookie may be the first G-rated movie in history that should not be seen by small children. Clocking in at 130-plus minutes, this new Dennis Quaid baseball movie will test even the most well-behaved kids. At the preview screening I attended, I think some of the youngsters in the audience actually began playing ball while the movie was playing to stave off the boredom.
The Rookie is a nice, sweet, good-natured movie about the amazing story of Jim Morris (Quaid), the 38-year-old high school chemistry teacher/baseball coach who bet his small-town Texas team that he would try out for the major leagues if they made it to the state championship. After giving up baseball in his youth due to an arm injury, Morris rediscovered his pitching skills when he began striking out all of his players in practice. As it turns out, his arm had healed in such a way that he could throw 98-mile-per-hour fastballs. Morris would end up pitching for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.
Whether or not you remember the Morris story from a few years ago, most moviegoers will be able to tell exactly where the movie based on his life is headed at least a half-hour into the flick. There is no reason The Rookie should have been as long and as slow as it is. It actually feels like a baseball game, and that's not necessarily a compliment.
Still, I did like many of the performances in the film, especially Quaid who plays the aging jock as well as anyone in movies today (he was one of the standouts in Any Given Sunday). And Brian Cox and Rachel Griffiths rise above their thankless roles as the disapproving father and supportive wife, respectively. I just wish the film had a bit more personality.
The Rookie gets its G rating because it really and truly contains nothing objectionable. No bad language, no cursing, no nudity, and no violence. For that, it should be praised. The lack of those four things is not why the movie is a bit dull. It's the lack of any surprises, any quirks, any truly transcendent moments. It reaches only for purity and finds it.
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