Tag: Clint Eastwood

From what I can tell, Trouble With The Curve seems to have snuck up out of nowhere. It is Clint Eastwood‘s first acting role in four years, and the first time he has acted in a movie he also wasn’t directing since 1993!

It is quite understandable that he is slowing down, right now clocking in at 82 years old and generally can only play the “mean old man” roles at this point, which doesn’t give him much diversity. But what does it mean that he is willing to act in a movie he has no control over? I guess he believes in that film’s message.

This is a shot of Clint Eastwood doing whatever the fuck he wants.

Eastwood plays Gus, a scout for the Atlanta Braves baseball team. He is a pretty big name in the scouting world, signing some of the greats and having an incredible eye and ear for future potential. Unfortunately, his wife died almost thirty years ago, when their daughter Mickey (Amy Adams) was only five years old.

Not being one for emotions (he is Clint Eastwood, after all!) Gus has had a strained relationship with his daughter throughout the years. Originally sending her off to live with her aunt/uncle, he began to take her on the road with her for about six years. She learned a lot about baseball, scouting, and potential, but when she hit 13 she was sent to boarding school (and later college, and law school), with barely any contact with her dad.

Mickey is now an associate lawyer, close to reaching a Partnership, making her both the youngest partner ever, and only female to have done it. But there is competition, and problems at home. Gus has problems with his prostate, and his body seems to be failing him. Most notably, his eyes. What good is a scout that can’t see the prospects?  Mickey is convinced by Pete Klein (John Goodman), the head of Braves scouting to head out with her dad to North Carolina to check out Bo Gentry (Joe Massingill), a potential future star in the MLB. The Braves have the number 2 overall pick, so if the Red Sox pass, they can nab Bo, but they have to make sure it is the real deal!

While in NC, we are given the perfect storm of dramatic potential. An aging man, going blind, too stubborn to care, and unwilling to tell his organization as his contract is coming up. A daughter, who wants nothing more than to talk with her father and finally clear the air with some of their issues. Coniving young people with fancy computers (Matthew Lillard) trying to take over the scouting department without even leaving the office. Not to mention a former pitcher that Gus signed for the Braves, who had his career end early, and is now scouting Bo for the Red Sox and scouting Mickey for himself (Justin Timberlake).

Also, there is some baseball in this movie as well.

The first thing I noticed about this movie is that it felt like the anti-Moneyball. Moneyball is a true story about how different advanced statistics could be used to determine players better than the old stats and ways of scouting. Trouble With The Curve is about how computers don’t know a thing and that the only good way of scouting is by being there in person watching them play.

The obvious real life answer is that both parts are important, computers can’t predict how a players hands move during a swing, or if they have trouble with certain situations, or their ability to bounce back. But to ignore computer stats completely is also ridiculous.

I think the movie had a good idea behind it, but didn’t execute it to its full potential. One scene early on, involving Eastwood singing “You Are My Sunshine” is one of the saddest things in awhile. It made me cry, and I thought I was in for a depressing movie. But it lets off from that sad feeling and just kind of rides neutral until the end of the film, with a happy ending and everything getting resolved. One plot point that they were clearly building towards early in the film was then ignored and brought back by the end, seemingly forced and not natural.

I will say the film had some great acting, but the way they got their point across at the end didn’t flow as well as I’d have liked.

Gran Torino was meant to be Clint Eastwood‘s last movie as an actor!

But now that I see his imdb, he is supposed to be acting in something called Trouble With The Curve later this year. Huh. Looks good too. My definition of good is “sad”, by the way.

Turns out a Gran Torino is a muscle car from Ford. From AMERICA!

The movie opens with the loss of Eastwood’s wife.. There is a gathering at his house, with “Friend” and “family”. The friends being mostly superficial, and his family thinking he is a curmudgeon who doesn’t care about anyone. Not really true. He cared about his wife! And his car. He fought in the Korean war, and used to live in a community of hard working class (White) citizens.

But this is Detroit, and the jobs have left and it has become poor. Now his entire neighborhood is poor Asian people, more specifically Hmong. He also has to deal with a young Catholic priest (Christopher Carley) who really really wants him to be all religious like his wife, but he hates that some young guy is trying to make him do anything.

His neighbors have a son and daughter, played by Bee Vang and Ahney Her. Bee is pressured to join a local gang by his cousin, and his initiation is to steal the Gran Torino from his neighbor. Fortunately for him, he gets caught. The gang pressures him to do more bad things, but Clint chases him off, which makes the neighbors love him.. To make up for the almost crime, he is sent over to work for Clint around his yard and house. He eventually makes it so that Bee must do yard work elsewhere and help his neighbors, making the overall community better.

Escalation continues between the gang and Bee, until Clint tries to intervene and beats up a gang member. They don’t like that at all, so they perform a drive by on the house on the neighbors house, and hit Bee and kidnap his sister. Needless to say, this makes him very angry and wants real revenge. Real hate demands real killing. But Clint knows what it is like to kill a man and doesn’t think he should have to live his life knowing that too. Can he put an end to the gang violence and redeem himself to all parties at the same time?

What kind of dick would try and bring violence to an old man too?

I probably owned this movie for over a year before I finally watched it. Was never in the mood for a serious race relations movie. Because all I really knew about it was the racial thing. After all, half of the dialogue seems to be full of racial slurs.

I also liked it a lot. Made what is a weird small occurrence seem like the grandest of causes for someone to fight for. I think most of the time, a gang wouldn’t care that much that a cousin doesn’t join them, they care more if they decide to leave the gang afterwards. But man, I really wanted them to be punished, and was stoked to see Clint Eastwood be the punisher. Kind of.

Really well acted, and if you don’t get emotional by the end, then you just probably weren’t paying attention.