Crosswalk.com

The Rookie

compiled by Jeffrey Overstreet

from Film Forum, 04/04/02

Until now, screenwriter John Lee Hancock was best known for penning A Perfect World, directed by and starring Clint Eastwood. But this week Hancock has delivered a rare gift to moviegoers, a G-rated family film that has audiences cheering and critics raving. Many are saying Dennis Quaid gives the best performance of his career in the leading role. In fact, The Rookie is the most acclaimed G-rated film since David Lynch's The Straight Story.

Sources say very few details in this true story have been altered to please the crowd—there's no Beautiful Mind revisionism to make a fairy tale out of difficult fact. Hancock and screenwriter Mark Rich found the tale of Major League Baseball pitcher Jim Morris powerful enough to inspire audiences without adding sentimental glop. And what a story: Morris surrendered his baseball career and his dreams when he injured his shoulder and doctors told him he'd never get his impressive abilities back. So he built a new life as a husband and a father, a community baseball coach, and a high school chemistry teacher. That's remarkable on its own, but when Morris's students challenged him to chase his dream one last time, he went for it. At 40 years old. And the dream came true.

Sports movies are too often tailored to convince us that all we need is willpower and a dream. The Rookie could easily have become a clichéabout the glory of sports. But moviegoers testify that above all this is a story about the power of supportive and encouraging families and communities to make unlikely things possible. While this spoils the myth of the independent, self-sufficient hero, it offers a far healthier example to those chasing dreams of achievement and excellence.

Michael Elliott (Movie Parables) is inspired by the story. He writes that Hancock and Rich "do lay the schmaltz on a bit thickly. But, to their credit, they do replicate the small town flavor of a community bound together by the personal heroics of one of their own. The way the people important to Jimmy rallied around him, encouraging and exhorting him to go forward to achieve his goals … is exactly how members in the body of Christ are to help one another."

In a review appearing online today, Douglas LeBlanc (Christianity Today) highlights "the film's prevailing theme of grace coming into the lives of people who pursue their dreams with courage and love." LeBlanc argues that Morris's quest for the major leagues is "less interesting … than the back story written by Mike Rich. Morris's father is so emotionally repressed that he cannot touch his son even in a moment of athletic triumph. Character actor Brian Cox brings subtlety to a role that he could have easily overplayed. The tentative steps toward reconciliation between father and son make the G-rated Rookie a worthwhile outing."

Jamee Kennedy (The Film Forum) calls it "a triumph of heart and soul and a wonderfully uplifting movie. Although the film's promos drip testosterone-laden baseball action, this film is really all about second chances and what we do with them."

The U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops calls it an "uplifting charmer. In spite of a few sags in momentum … Hancock's film pulls on the heart strings … while pleasing and inspiring without the slightest suggestion of violence, sex, or even a crude word."

Bob Smithouser (Focus on the Family) says the film "celebrates hard work, community, perseverance and the need for spouses to share a common, unselfish vision for their home. Also, there's a sharp contrast between healthy and unhealthy approaches to fathering. The Rookie is guileless entertainment with lots of heart and plenty for parents and teens to talk about."

Holly McClure (Crosswalk) calls it "one of the best baseball movies ever made. Much more than just a story about the sport, it's a testimony that God can give second chances in life no matter how old a person is. This one will go on my list as one of the top ten movies this year, and I predict it will be a huge hit!"

Lisa Rice (Movieguide) says Dennis Quaid "gives an excellent performance. [The Rookie is] so well made, that it should win many awards. It also serves as a telling example to Hollywood that clean … pro-family movies can be the hottest ticket in town."

Douglas Downs (Christian Spotlight) responds euphorically: "Christians and people that value high morals need to support this film. Let's create some positive buzz!"

Some Christian critics prefer to focus on what the movie doesn't have. Mary Draughon (Preview) writes, "It's heartwarming to see an entertaining, feature film about a loving family. The Rookie's glaring absence of sex, violence and foul language … adds to its charm."

Even hard-to-please critics in the mainstream press are won over. Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com writes, "The idea is sentimental, but Quaid dries all the sappiness out of it. There's something in his face that suggests both contentment and restlessness, but even more important, the sense that it's perfectly natural (and understandable) for the two to coexist in all of us. That's what makes his moments of joy—the swollen music on the soundtrack notwithstanding—seem pure and wholly believable."

Kirk Honeycutt (Hollywood Reporter) says it "derives its power by sticking to the facts."

Jeffrey Wells (Reel.com) finds it a rare treasure: "Comparisons have been made to Remember the Titans, but that film was 'entertainment' … [it] used every trick and ploy it could think of to stir the emotions. [The Rookie] works its peculiar magic without seeming to milk, shovel, or pull any one's chain."

Marc Caro (Chicago Tribune) writes that the film "plays off of the most basic yearnings: What baseball fan hasn't imagined striding to the mound of a major league stadium and zipping a fastball past a desperately swinging batter? What son hasn't wanted his dad to be proud of him? What father hasn't wanted his son to be proud of him? The Rookie may be pushing buttons, but at least they're the right buttons."

from Film Forum, 04/11/02

Disney's inspiring true-life baseball story The Rookie continued to draw applause this week, easily making it the most popular film with Christian critics so far this year.

Steven D. Greydanus (Decent Films) calls the story of baseball hero Jim Morris "sweetly appealing, inspirational, and wholesome—a story you're glad to learn really happened, more or less as the movie presents it, without the problematic historical footnotes that intrude upon films like A Beautiful Mind."

I caught up with it myself and was deeply moved by its honesty and grace—not words I would usually use to describe formulaic Disney product. It takes the touch of an artist to invigorate a familiar outline with fresh ideas, or to use metaphors that make the work resonate on different levels. The Rookie is one of those rare, wonderful "formula" films that tells its story with earnestness, believability, attention to detail, and fully developed characters. It favors understatement over exaggeration, subtlety over sentimentality (although occasionally it lets the syrup flow). Even in the "familiar" moments, the filmmakers restrain the music, effects, and close-ups that routinely command us to weep. Instead we have that uncomfortable feeling of watching real people in quiet, intimate, life-changing moments.

There is a startling moment near the film's conclusion when Jim Morris (Dennis Quaid, in an Oscar-worthy performance) grabs hold of his wife's hand and looks at her with an expression of amazement and gratitude that was in no way the Hollywood moment you'd expect—it turns our attention away from Morris and reminds us of the powers and miracles that brought him to that place. It rings true. Morris is not a big-screen hero in the "I did it my way" tradition. His achievements are the result of a cooperative effort that emphasize how we are all role models for each other—parent to child, husband to wife, teacher to student, and sometimes even students to teacher.