Trouble with the Curve Reviews
- ️@metacritic
Summary Gus Lobel has been one of the best scouts in baseball for decades, but, despite his efforts to hide it, age is starting to catch up with him. Nevertheless, Gus—who can tell a pitch just by the crack of the bat—refuses to be benched for what could be the final innings of his career. He may not have a choice. The front office of the Atlant...
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Summary Gus Lobel has been one of the best scouts in baseball for decades, but, despite his efforts to hide it, age is starting to catch up with him. Nevertheless, Gus—who can tell a pitch just by the crack of the bat—refuses to be benched for what could be the final innings of his career. He may not have a choice. The front office of the Atlant...
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A defiantly analog rejoinder to last year's tech-savvy baseball drama, "Moneyball," Robert Lorenz's square but sturdy directing debut rests on the wonderfully spiky chemistry between Eastwood and Amy Adams.
Regrettably, it is not a home run or a perfect game, but it isn't a wild throw, an errant bunt or a dropped fly ball either. Trouble With the Curve is either an off-speed pitch that just catches the edge of the strike zone or a bloop single lofted into right field. The runner is safe. The movie is too.
Baseball movies tend to be lyrical, deeply felt, aggressively metaphorical and (consequently) terrible, but Trouble With the Curve has something most others lack: Eastwood's superb, cruel sense of humor, which reaches all the way back to "Every Which Way But Loose."
Ends up being the kind of movie we don't see a whole lot anymore: an emotionally grounded and quietly meaningful crowd-pleaser that functions as a lovely antidote to the recently ended summer blockbuster season.
This is a character we have seen a million times before and Eastwood brings little that's new or original to the part. The movie as a whole can be labeled with the same criticism.
Adams is absolutely winning in this role, which requires her to be a tough-as-nails attorney, grownup tomboy, and psychologically scarred adult. And she makes a good foil for Eastwood, though it's often uncomfortable to see the actor going through melodramatic paces.
Lacking narrative momentum, saddled with thin characterizations and uninspired plotting, Trouble With The Curve should've stayed on the bench.
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Production Company Warner Bros., Malpaso Productions
Release Date Sep 21, 2012
Duration 1 h 51 m
Rating TV-14
Tagline Whatever Life Throws at You
Hollywood Film Awards
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
National Board of Review, USA
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
Georgia Film Critics Association (GAFCA)