Trouble with the Curve (2012) [Combo Pack] – Blu-ray + DVD + Ultraviolet

*½/**** Image A Sound A Extras D
starring
Clint Eastwood, Amy Adams, Justin Timberlake, John Goodman
screenplay by Randy Brown
directed by Robert Lorenz




Troublewiththecurve

by Angelo Muredda Trouble with
the Curve
is an unfortunate title for a film
beset with problems on every side. Helmed by longtime Clint Eastwood
producer/assistant director/close friend Robert Lorenz, making his equally
unfortunate feature debut, it isn't directed so much as stiffly pushed in the
direction of new events once every ten minutes or so. A father-daughter family
drama, a sports movie, and a portrait of a career woman swimming with the
sharks, first-timer Randy Brown's screenplay is a mess beyond even an experienced
director's fixing.

RUNNING TIME
111 minutes
MPAA
PG-13
ASPECT RATIO(S)
2.40:1 (1080p/MPEG-4)
LANGUAGES
English 5.1 DTS-HD MA
French DD 5.1
Spanish DD 5.1
Portuguese DD 5.1
SUBTITLES
English SDH
French
Spanish
Portuguese

REGION
All
DISC TYPE
BD-50
STUDIO
Warner

Eastwood, apparently good for a
favour, plays Gus, an ailing baseball scout for the Atlanta Braves. Unsteady in
his steps and going blind, Gus is about to be put out to pasture by GM Vince
(Robert Patrick), who has the fittingly named, slippery upstart Tom Silver
(Matthew Lillard) whispering cankerous nothings in his ear. Gus would be a
goner but for the intervention of upper-management buddy Pete (John Goodman),
who nabs his old friend some extra time by convincing Gus's estranged daughter
Mickey (Amy Adams) to trail him on one last mission, being his eyes for a
recruiting trip. Their combined efforts nominally pit them against Red Sox
scout Johnny (Justin Timberlake), but the tension's immediately defused when
it turns out he's a great guy, if a weird one–the sort who creeps little
league practice sessions until the poor kids ask him to leave.

Seeing Adams and Eastwood interact
is not unpleasant, and you can't say they aren't trying, but the film takes an
awfully long time to get moving, deferring its modest charms past their sell-by
date. The first act is dead weight: Watch how Lorenz stages an inexcusably long
expository scene between Goodman, Lillard, and Patrick as a shot/countershot
roulette, following a botched master shot. As if that weren't punishing enough, roughly the same scene is restaged moments later with Adams, in front of
yet another tribunal of character actors who get to decide whether she nabs a
big promotion. Again all we get are sloppy close-ups of discrete faces,
shifting back and forth with no discernible rhythm. This is the work of someone
who needs to dole out information but doesn't know how to do it.

The film's on more solid ground with
its leads, especially Adams, who is surprisingly nuanced given what little she
has to work with. Mickey's a dream girl, the Smart Business Lady who'd rather
follow her father to baseball games than secure her career, which doesn't
square with the endless shots of her burying her "beak"–Dad's
words–in her Blackberry. (Lorenz seems confused about how smartphones work,
having Mickey scan but never reply to texts as she receives them, as if her job
description reads "answering machine.") But Adams has the poise of a
corporate lawyer and the innate competence of an amateur scout, directing
herself to a fine performance.

Growling at appliances and struggling to keep a straight face during his big
scene, a tipsy, spoken-word rendition of "You Are My Sunshine" delivered to
a gravestone, Eastwood doesn't have as much to do. He makes a convincing distant
father to Adams, though, despite a crass third-act twist that explains why he
sent her away as a kid after her mother's death. Brown's script seems
determined to piss away the goodwill the actors work so hard to gain, building
things to a shameful climax involving a humble Latino peanut vendor with a good
arm. From his clunky first appearance, it's obvious he'll be scouted, but you
hope it's by someone with better taste in new talent than Eastwood.

THE BLU-RAY DISC
by Bill Chambers Shot
in 35mm CinemaScope, Trouble with the Curve exports to Blu-ray in a
fine-grain 2.40:1, 1080p transfer with deep blacks, incredible textural detail, and overgraded colours
bordering on putrid. Clint Eastwood's current cinematographer Tom Stern and director
Rob Lorenz maybe let a little more natural (and unnatural) light into the frame
but otherwise perpetuate their mentor's latter-day SteadiCam-on-shoulder,
velvet-painting aesthetic. Again, though, the image is crisp, as are the various
cracks, thwacks, and clinks gracing the soundtrack. That collision of wood
and leather has never sounded as rich as it does in this 5.1 DTS-HD MA
rendering of an otherwise-unexceptional, hemispheric mix.

Two five-minute, HD
featurettes–"Trouble with the Curve: Rising Through the
Ranks" and "Trouble with the Curve: For the Love of the
Game"–are also on board the disc, the first addressing Lorenz's long-time
affiliation with Eastwood (everyone's impressed with this first-time
filmmaker's "preparedness," which is about one step up from
complimenting the catering), the second the alleged chemistry between Amy Adams and Justin Timberlake. Both actors say their characters are
the closest they've ever played to themselves, with Adams describing her real self as
"acerbic" and "petulant." As for Timberlake: I just don't
get it, man. He's the drama-club dink all the girls pretended was
"hilarious" to feel less shallow for objectifying him. On the other hand, he was great as Sean Parker. The trailer for 42, the long-awaited Jackie Robinson
biopic starring an unrecognizable Harrison Ford (though not as Robinson), cues
up on startup. Included in the keepcase are DVD and Ultraviolet copies of the film.

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18 Comments

  1. RJH

    Bravo, Caption Boy. Bra-vo.

  2. RJH

    Bravo, Caption Boy. Bra-vo.

  3. RJH

    Bravo, Caption Boy. Bra-vo.

  4. AtheistConservative

    The headline Obama joke simply reaffirms my suspicion that bias played into this review.

  5. AtheistConservative

    The headline Obama joke simply reaffirms my suspicion that bias played into this review.

  6. AtheistConservative

    The headline Obama joke simply reaffirms my suspicion that bias played into this review.

  7. RegularAtheist

    Eastwood’s conservatism has been common knowledge for decades and yet many of his films have been reviewed favorably on this site.

  8. RegularAtheist

    Eastwood’s conservatism has been common knowledge for decades and yet many of his films have been reviewed favorably on this site.

  9. RegularAtheist

    Eastwood’s conservatism has been common knowledge for decades and yet many of his films have been reviewed favorably on this site.

  10. KayKay

    The reek of yet another cliched sappy sports drama was coming off in waves even from the trailer.
    Why oh why couldn’t Eastwood be satisfied with having the wonderful Gran Torino be his actor swan song?

  11. KayKay

    The reek of yet another cliched sappy sports drama was coming off in waves even from the trailer.
    Why oh why couldn’t Eastwood be satisfied with having the wonderful Gran Torino be his actor swan song?

  12. KayKay

    The reek of yet another cliched sappy sports drama was coming off in waves even from the trailer.
    Why oh why couldn’t Eastwood be satisfied with having the wonderful Gran Torino be his actor swan song?

Comments are closed