ROOKIE OF THE YEAR
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1997 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ** 1/2
"That extends the Cubs to their longest winning streak of the season, two," loudly proclaims Cliff (John Candy), the Cub's announcer, in ROOKIE OF THE YEAR (1993).
It was just a few days earlier that the Chicago Cubs had found their salvation in 12-year-old Henry Rowengartner (Thomas Ian Nicholas). Before he showed up in the stands one day and accidentally demonstrated his 100+ MPH fast ball, the team was about to go bankrupt.
It all started several months earlier when the hopelessly unathletic but baseball fanatic Henry had fallen and broken his right arm. When it healed, the doctor found that two muscles had fused together creating the effect of a wound-up rubber band.
Sam Harper's script blends baseball fantasy and childhood friendships. The former has a delightful imagination that rarely lags, but the latter is a rehash that drags frequently. What makes the picture is that the film is smart enough to concentrate on the fairy tale although not quite savvy enough to eliminate the many characters that simply do not work.
Chief among the characters that should be benched is that of Phil Brickman, the idiotic pitching coach, played by the director Daniel Stern. (This uneven farce, based on a promising script, is perhaps one of the reasons that actor Stern has never directed another movie before or since.) Brickman, when he isn't inadvertently locking himself into some small space, utters such inanities as, "Punctuality: Without it, time stands still," or gives out crackpot advice like using hot ice as a cure for sore muscles. Stern overacts with a vengeance in his, thankfully modest, number of scenes.
The whimsical story doesn't try to make too much sense. Henry shows up for his first day in the majors without practice and without ever even seeing the dressing room. He tells his mother to leave him at the gate since the other player's moms are not going to escort them in. When he takes his place for the first time on the pitcher's mound at Wrigley Field, the full stands go crazy. That his pitches are as wild as they are powerful is soon solved by an old pro and rapidly fading star pitcher Chet Steadman (Gary Busey).
As a soon-to-be has-been, Busey is well cast. The story also includes a needless romantic triangle between Steadman, Henry's mother Mary (Amy Morton), and her boyfriend of three weeks, Jack Bradfield (Bruce Altman).
Typical of the show's charm is the scene where the coach finally lets Henry bat in a game. After he gets on base, he is so slow that the runner behind him almost runs him over. Together they tag home seconds before the catcher tries to tag them out.
By the end of the movie, the writer has just about run out of ideas and is down to having Henry pose in commercials where they demand that he "look sexy." With his immature and nerdish appearance, this is essentially impossible.
The writer, after several highly predictable decisions, appears to have painted himself in a corner, but he finally revives the magic from the beginning and saves the picture with a cute twist in the last inning.
ROOKIE OF THE YEAR runs too long at 1:43. It is rated PG but I am not sure why as the film contains nothing offensive to any age. My son Jeffrey, age 8, thought the film was "okay, but kind of boring because all they do is play baseball." I was charmed by its fairy tale aspects, so I am recommending the movie and giving it ** 1/2.
**** = A must see film. *** = Excellent show. Look for it. ** = Average movie. Kind of enjoyable. * = Poor show. Don't waste your money. 0 = Totally and painfully unbearable picture.
REVIEW WRITTEN ON: July 1, 1997
Opinions expressed are mine and not meant to reflect my employer's.
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