Clint Eastwood does a Matthau in Trouble with the Curve/Warner Bros/2012

I like this film because it's breezy but tight, just right for an afternoon movie fare with your 80 year old mother over tea and biscuits. The film is so linear and predictable that going to the bathroom will not be a problem.
The screenplay of Randy Brown weaves stories of  curve balls in life and the protagonists' ways of handling them at bat. The center of the action revolves around the strained relationship of a father, Gus Lobel, an aging baseball scout, with his daughter, Mickey, a  lawyer with prospects of landing partner in her firm. Their disparate lives are thrown together on a scouting sojourn. As a double play, enter Johnny Flanagan, a dead arm turned scout, out to snare his first draft into the big leagues in hope of entering baseball broadcast. However, his out pitch is reserved for Mickey.
Not really aiming to be Oscar material, it pitches some funny lines (" Get out before I die of a heart attack trying to kill you" Clint Eastwood growls at a guy in a bar harassing Amy Adams), some cutesy love scenes, interesting insider trade crafts on baseball (hands drifting at bat cannot hit a curve), a little office politics and a bit of drama, all neatly wrapped in a package. One scene had Eastwood talking to the gravestone of his wife supposedly dramatic in intention but comes off funny reminding one of the chair monologue he did in the Romney campaign. If just for this, the movie becomes worthwhile.

Ed Lauter

When Mickey Lobel (Amy Adams, Junebug 2005 Sony Pictures) joins her aging baseball scout father Gus (Eastwood) on a trip to North Carolina to spot players, The Bad News Bears (Paramount, 1976) immediately comes to mind. It doesn't help that Eastwood tries a Walter Matthau, complete with the trademark grumpiness,  slobbery and a know it all persona.
Adams for her part is fitted with a role that almost resembles that of Tatum O' Neil- smart talking, baseball savant, billiard playing, single-malt drinking lawyer, well almost. A trio of other scouts (Lauter, Ross and Thomas) sprinkles the movie with funny bits of screen nostalgia as they go about their business like how Sammy Davis should have played the Sundance kid instead of Redford (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid 1969 20th Century Fox) or Ice Cube being versatile compared to De Niro. HD actor Ed Lauter is made to sit all throughout  his scenes without a line, makes one wonder why they needed his services at all.
The strain on the relationship gets ugly as they spend the days together because Gus is unwilling and unable to discuss his desertion of his daughter when she was 6 while Mickey seemed bent on holding her father responsible for her over-long psycho therapy. Flanagan (Justine Timberlake, Friend with Benefits 2011 Screen Gems) joins the father and daughter duo in their search for baseball talents.
The focus of the scout expedition, a heavy hitter, Bo Gentry (Joe Massingil) does not impress Gus.  In turn Gus  advises Flanagan to pass on the player for the draft. Flanagan follows Gus but later discovers that Gus' group picks up Gentry (prodded by Sanderson played by Mathew Lillard, Scream 1996 Dimension Films) and feels betrayed, specially by Mickey with whom he develops a relationship. Meantime, Mickey's partnership prospect in her law firm comes to a standstill because she had now spent an inordinate time with her father in North Carolina.
Gus decides to leave Mickey on her own after explaining his desertion when she was six. Meantime Mickey chances upon Rigo Sanchez (Jay Galloway) and decides he is a better pick than Gentry. Some sequences portrayed Gentry as an asshole (together with his father) probably to push audience sentiment towards Sanchez which I thought was unnecessary.  With Pete Klein (John Goodman, King Ralph 1991 Universal Pictures) Mickey is able to showcase Rigo which results to the dropping of Gentry (I suppose), the firing of Sanderson, the patching up of Mickey and Flanagan as well as the resolution of the relationship problem of father and daughter.
The movie feels like it's made for TV except for its power house cast. The directorial debut of Robert Lorenz feels technical which is to say, it seemed he just set up the shots forgetting to leave character notes to the actors.
Tom Stern makes no attempt to jazz up the visuals even the CG of the curve ball does not make an impact which is what the film was all about, curve balls of life.
Eastwood's attempt at Matthau is hampered by the gruff  because for the character to be lovable, inspite his personality, it should have a wise- cracking, fast talking side. Amy Adam reminds one of Melissa Joan Hart with her goody-goody face. So she looks miscast as street smart Mickey even as she delineates her role clearly. She doesn't even look a bit like old Clint. Timberlake playing a washed up pitcher trying to clinch another career had his moments but if the script allowed him to sing, I'd say it would have been better.
Lillard passes for a corporate ass wipe while Robert Patrick seem to be still in the set of Terminator II with his unchange expression all through the film.
Now John Goodman is another story. Either playing the concerned friend of Eastwood in this film or the drug dispensing crony of Denzel in Flight (2012 Paramount) or the villain in another Denzel film, Fallen ( 1998 Turner) or the make up guy in Argo (2012 Warner Bros), Goodman is always able to make the characters believable through the tone of his voice or the way he walks or gestures with his hand. Also he always comes up hip.
Oh Yeah, the pick of the songs in this movie is oh so good, more specially that Hollies hit Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress.
On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give this movie a 6. Buy the DVD and enjoy a delightful afternoon with your mom or your grandmother.