Trouble With the Curve (2012)

If there ever was a movie that felt like it was written during an all-day Full House marathon, it is Robert Lorenz’s Trouble With the Curve; a confused, messy and laughably cheesy drama that never seems to be about anything besides getting to the next moment of unearned sentiment. At least it’s a well-performed fiasco, with Clint Eastwood, Amy Adams and Justin Timberlake all doing their best to make the proceedings as charming as possible. They almost succeed, and for the first two and a half acts Trouble With the Curve isn’t great or terrible as much as it’s just middling. Then the ending comes along, and there’s no preparing for one of the cheesiest, lamest resolutions you will ever see. It tries so hard to be a crowd-pleaser that it winds up being a crowd-annoyer.

Eastwood is Gus Lobel, an old-timey baseball scout for the Atlanta Braves who is starting to lose his eyesight. He doesn’t tell anyone about this, and he continues to do his job despite not being able to see more than five feet in front of his face. His daughter Mickey (Amy Adams) is an attorney who can never get close to her dad no matter how hard she tries. When she begins to fear for his health, she follows him on a trip to North Carolina and attempts to reconnect over a long weekend. It is there she meets new Red Sox scout Johnny Flanagan (Justin Timberlake), who is looking to start a broadcasting career. Little does Gus know that he’s very close to being fired, thanks to a young, computer-loving punk played by Matthew Lillard who wants to be a general manager someday. We know he is evil because in one scene we see him talking on the phone in a darkened office, with only one lamp on. It turns out the future of Gus’ career depends on his evaluations of a young power hitter played by Joe Massingill.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen a movie have this much trouble with finding the right balance between comedy and drama. For long stretches of time, the movie will be nothing but a string of “haha, isn’t he old?” jokes at Eastwood’s expense, and then for no reason whatsoever we’ll spend a scene watching Massingill joke about all the girls he’s going to sleep with once he hits the pros. This is all light and reasonably fun, but then Eastwood will get into a car crash or will have to deal with his handling of Mickey’s childhood. There’s plenty of room for both the serious stuff and the funny stuff, but Trouble With the Curve is awfully inelegant in the way it stuffs it all in.

The movie at least has the opportunity to challenge us somewhat at the end, but then comes a tidal wave of lame and unconvincing coincidences and surprises that completely erase any of the good that came before. The climax of Trouble With the Curve feels like a parody of Hollywood feel-good endings, and every last second feels cheap and unearned. At least it’s dealing with positive emotion rather than negative emotion—that lessens the wound somewhat—but it still leaves a horrible taste in your mouth when you get ridiculous endings like this. Anyone who complained about War Horse’s sentimentality should eat their words after seeing what this movie tries to get away with.

If Trouble With the Curve is able to fool anyone, it will probably because Eastwood is still able to invest you in his character’s plight. We care about him, even if all the events around him are complete crap. He and Adams develop quite the chemistry as the film’s father-daughter team, and though Timberlake doesn’t get a lot to do he is still his charming self. But like so much of this movie, he isn’t a real character so much as he is a conflict generation device. He serves exactly the purpose you expect when you first see him. He shows up, falls for Adams, leaves, and then comes back. Oops, should I have warned you about spoilers? Oh well.

This is the first time Eastwood has acted in a non-Eastwood film since In the Line of Fire, and it’s easy to wonder why he would choose this project to step back in front of the camera. The answer becomes obvious when you start to look deeper. Lorenz, who directed Trouble With the Curve, has produced and helped make Eastwood movies for quite some time. The two of them have clearly developed a relationship, and Eastwood probably would not have done this movie for anyone else. It’s just a shame that the movie he made is such a clichéd mess. Hopefully he has a few more acting roles in him. You can’t leave us with this, Clint.

Grade: D