Film 146 (Goal: 300) of 2024:

I'm a sucker for a sports genre movie - always have been. And I've watched some really good ones lately, that I either wasn't aware of or wasn't expecting to like. Trouble with the Curve stars Clint Eastwood as an elderly baseball scout, who's sight is failing him and is being pushed out by younger, uneducated men who rely on technology. His daughter, played by Amy Adam, has a strained relationship with her father. At the request of their friend, worried about Eastwood's health and career, she joins her father in North Carolina, to review a highly touted potential #1 draft pick.

Trouble with the Curve isn't a bad sports movie by any means. One may argue that sports is the back drop to the relationships between Adams and Eastwood, as well as Adams and Justin Timberlake, who plays a young scout with big ambitions. Eastwood spends a good portion of the film over extending that trademark scowl, with all his dialogue being of a man out of place and completely disillusioned with the world. There's an interesting bit of character development that comes to fruition very late into the film, that is a welcomed addition. It would have been nice to have a little more of those turns earlier into the film.

The film finishes far too sweetly however, as everything lines up perfectly for every single character, in a way that is completely unbelievable. And while you want the protagonists to win in these movies, but it goes a step too far. But other than these things, Trouble with the Curve is a more than adequate film.