Trouble with the Curve

There are some things I can't resist, and Clint Eastwood playing a grumpy old baseball scout for the Atlanta Braves would be one of them.  He's old, his contract is about to expire, and he's having serious eye problems.  So naturally he's the one who has to scout the hotshot phenom that Atlanta's considering taking with their top pick in the draft. The hotshot with the computer doesn't think Clint can do the job and that his computer already knows what's best.

 Eastwood's character is named Gus, and he has a daughter, Mickey (Amy Adams), who's semi-estranged.  Gus' choice.  Gus' old friend (John Goodman) persuades Mickey to join her dad for a few days.  She does, even though it puts at risk her hopes of becoming a partner in the law firm where she works.  Justin Timberlake, a former player once recruited by Gus and now a scout for the Red Sox, shows up and is naturally attracted to Mickey.

Once all the pieces are in place, the movie follows a predictable path, but it's so well acted and written that I didn't care.  I kind of like predictability, I guess, at least some of the time.  I'm willing to overlook a lot of implausible stuff, too.

I made a prediction of my own before we went to the movie, and it was dead on the money.  When we walked into the back of the theater and looked out over the crowd, it was like looking at a sea of Q-Tips.  So now you know the movie's target audience.  Whippersnappers, beware.