Review: ‘Rookie’ hits home run

Geoff Carter

Friday, March 29, 2002 | 9:31 a.m.

You could view Walt Disney Pictures' "The Rookie" a dozen times and never find a dirty word. You won't even find anything soiled. This baseball picture, based on a true story, is as clean and wholesome as our idea of baseball itself.

As a result, what was already a remarkable story borders on the unfathomable. Dennis Quaid plays Jimmy Morris, a high-school science teacher and baseball coach who began pitching in the major leagues at age 35. He threw 99 mph fastballs -- almost 20 mph faster than he threw in his prime. And having met the man, I can tell you that Morris would just as soon take a bat to the head than utter an obscenity.

Quaid, on the other hand, is a different animal entirely. His performance as Morris could be one of his best roles -- grounded, personable and warmer than he's been in years. You come to like him immediately, and like him all the more as he coaches his losing team to its first victory, balances his family and work lives and stares longingly into space, wondering what it would have been like to play in the majors.

He finds out in the strangest of ways. He bets his team that if they should win their division, he'll try out for a major league team; when they do, he drives all day to try out for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. In the middle of changing a diaper -- he brings his children -- he's called up and pitches his best, thinking he's fulfilled his part of the bargain and that he can go home. Fate, naturally, thinks otherwise.

When he's recruited, Quaid begins walking on air, but humbly: He is so immersed in Morris' character that the one time the actor dips into his cool, wickedly rakish persona, it rings out similar to a two-second blast of James Brown. You really like Quaid, and Morris, to the point you're tempted to blur the two -- all to the film's greater good.

His support is every bit as strong. As Morris' military dad, Brian Cox goes from being a two-note stereotype to a conflicted pop who knows what he wants to say to his son, but doesn't have the words to say it. Rachel Griffiths plays his wife, Lorrie, with gentle conviction, as does Jay Hernandez as Joaquin Campos, the student who encourages him to risk failure just once more.

And "The Rookie" looks great. Director John Lee Hancock shuns the traditional cliches of shooting baseball films and gives "The Rookie" the look of a dusty, golden-brown western. The small West Texas town Morris calls home, the barren baseball diamond where his high school team plays, and the oil field where he practices (the myth behind which is a neat framing device) would all seem right at home in a John Ford picture, as would Quaid. He's the very epitome of the strong, silent type, with a Jiffy Lube cap instead of a 10-gallon Stetson.

Mike Rich's script is full of familiar twists and turns, which makes it all the more surprising when you get to the end and are struck by how real everything seemed -- even the parts that feel romanticized or flat-out impossible. It may not appeal to young kids, who are getting numbed by an endless parade of wisecracking ogres and fart jokes, but to us older kids it's a revelation -- a throwback to a time, not too long ago, when swearing was just another word for making a promise to yourself.