International star of the Republican National Convention and gruff old coot Clint Eastwood brings back everyone's favourite slowly-growing-ionsane-growling-at-furniture character for Trouble With The Curve, in which we open with him talking to his penis about urinating. Mr. Eastwood's penis, however, is not the Curve in question, the title in fact only becomes a point of plot in the final 20 minutes, which means a lot of nothing beforehand.
Trouble With The Curve sees Eastwood play an old baseball talent scout, losing his eyesight but being grumpy and persistent alongside Atlanta Braves man John Goodman, as co-worker Matthew Lillard discusses how much better computers are than wasting time seeing people actually play. Old vs New again.
Eastwood goes off to look at a young kid who is written to be the biggest a-hole imaginable, but seems to have a good ability at whacking homers from every ball. His daughter, Amy Adams, tags along, despite needing to do work on a case to make partner at her law firm because she worries for her father, even if she feels that their relationship never recovered from him messing up when she was a kid. Yes, it's another daddy-issues baseball movie. And no, it's no Field of Dreams. Justin Timberlake smiles at every appearance as he randomly pops up to be charming but completely useless in a role that offers nothing for the man.
Ultimately the film spends a lot of time in the sticks as Eastwood, Adams and Timberlake watch a baseball game, discuss the playing, drink, shout, divulge pertinent information, sleep, repeat, and it doesn't work towards the film at all, character plots seem dispersed, a key character in act three is ignored after an obvious introduction early in the film and Adams tries to perform despite a character written without much understanding on how writing works (She often just blurts out exposition for the audience).
Despite the fact that the script feels like it was a very early draft indeed, Adams, moreso than the rest, raises the bar with her performance, one that feels half-real compared to the character on the page, and helps lend some joy and sweetness to the piece as well. Unfortunately Eastwood's grumpy, gruff character is as tired to the audience as he seems in the film, offering nothing new or an interesting take on the character, it feels like the kind of thing he's been churning out for years, a lot like his directorial work of late. Uninspired.
The movie runs way too long at almost 2 hours, and the middle act seems to go on for a great deal longer than any other part of the film, perhaps due to the repetitious nature of it or maybe it actually is 75 minutes long. But the film does end at one point, and the third act seems to bring some interest into the film, the characters and the baseball scouting premise that's not there in the first hour and a half, a missed opportunity indeed.
This film also sees Eastwood sing "You Are My Sunshine" to a gravestone, before a chorus continues the song in what seemed at the time to be a spoof dramatic moment, but apparently was meant to be serious. And in a drama, if you're not hitting the serious beats without making it seem awkwardly hysterical, you're doing something wrong. The Trouble With The Curve is that this draft of the script got picked first.