The Rookie A Movie Review	MPAA Rated - G It's 2:09 Long A Review by The Dude on the Right

"The Rookie" is based on the real life of a guy named Jim Morris. His life played out like a fairytale movie, and what better avenue for a fairytale than baseball. Basically the story goes like this…

Jim Morris always loved baseball, always dreamed of making the big leagues, and as a little kid, the son of a military man, he was always uprooted and moved to a new town as dad moved. This didn’t lead to much stability for the young lad, especially moving to a little Texas town with no Little League team, but Jim kept dreaming. Eventually he did move up the baseball ranks ending up in the minor leagues, but when he blew out his shoulder he ended up relegated to being a science teacher and the coach of a bunch of ragamuffins on the high school baseball team. Married with two kids, Jim pretty much has settled on his lot in life, until one day he throws a few fastballs at the catcher for the high school team, and suddenly the dream is reborn. Well, not just yet.

The high school team pretty much sucks, and after losing Jim complains to the team that their problem is that they just quit. As kids are want to do, they throw it right back in his face about his quitting trying to be a major league pitcher, so to balance things out the team makes a deal with their coach – if the team can make the District Championship then Coach Jim has to try out for the majors again. Jim reluctantly agrees, surely feeling that, sure, these guys are going to make the Districts, but then, of course, they make it to Districts. Jim has to keep his end of the bargain, and when it turns out he is throwing 98 mile an hour fastballs, well, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays put him in their minor league farm club. Yea, yea, you can guess it, it reads like every feel good movie because Jim eventually gets the call to play in the majors. You couldn’t write a better feel-good story, except this really happened to Jim Morris.

As the movie goes, Dennis Quaid plays Jim, Rachel Griffiths plays his wife Lori, and Angus T. Jones plays his adorable son, Hunter. The movie pretty much chronicles Jim’s story the year the high school team challenges him. You get the unbelievable high school team, you get the concerned wife, you get the son looking up to dad, you get Jim still being a little afraid of his own dad, and you get a town that doesn’t really care about baseball, that is until the team starts winning. Everything in the movie works, but for me it was about 20 minutes too long. After about an hour and a half of the team challenging Jim, Jim kinda keeping things from Lori, and Jim taking his children to his major league try-outs, I just wanted it to get to the spot where Jim steps on the mound in the majors. There isn’t any suspense; you know the end result, just get there. Granted, I did get weepy when the minor league coach gave Jim the news he was going to the big show, but it just seemed to take a little too long, and I don’t think I was alone as the little ones at the movie theater started to get a little antsy towards the end.

"The Rookie" is a great story about not quitting on your dreams, and the movie is clean for the entire family, being rated "G" and all, but it really plays off like a father and son movie rather than dragging the daughter along. Sure, the girls might like it too, and the mom’s might get weepy (the lady next to me was blubbering all over the place), but this is a movie for the guys. It’s 4 stars out of 5 for "The Rookie," even being a little too long.

That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!