Trouble With the Curve

Director: Robert Lorenz
Year Released: 2012
Rating: 1.5

An aging baseball scout (Clint Eastwood) is having difficulties with his vision - due to macular degeneration - so his lawyer daughter (Amy Adams) flies down to be his 'eyes' and figure out if a power hitter from the Carolinas is worth taking as their #1 pick in the draft - also there to scout the slugger is a former Red Sox pitcher (Justin Timberlake, who strikes me as someone who would struggle throwing an empty cardboard box into a dumpster). The script sets out to establish that Eastwood's Old Way of Doing Things is far superior to Matthew Lillard's Modern Way of Doing Things (with sabermetrics) - an attempt to craft this as the anti-Moneyball - but the only real problem is that Moneyball is not just about sabermetrics but a combination of computer analysis and human interaction - meaning there's grey area that needs to be considered - and, while we're comparing the two movies, Moneyball is a superior motion picture from a dramatic point of view (and while Pitt's loveable loser came across naturally, this forcefully tries to make Clint decrepit and pitiable). The last act is particularly heinous from a screenwriting point of view, with the Baseball Player to Save Clint's Career literally appearing outside Adams' hotel door, throwing glorious pitches with the ability of a Randy Johnson and being able to strike out the highly touted power hitter the movie revolves around with ease and grace. By that logic, the college-aged young lady who jogs around my neighborhood every morning has to be the next Jackie Joyner-Kersee.