Tomorrow marks the entry of four new movies into theaters and one of them happens to be the first feature starring Clint Eastwood in four years, so it is worth checking out the reviews. Anyone watching the roll-out over the past few days has seen some very high marks from critics, but unfortunately the Robert Lorenz-directed effort seems to be sliding as release nears. Currently at 57% on Rotten Tomatoes, the film is considered a near-disaster as acting is the only thing A-grade about this one.
The positive reviews seem to accept the fact that this dramedy has nothing special in terms of a plot. Instead, they fawn over the cast that includes Eastwood and Amy Adams, giving them the props we all expected them to receive. Unfortunately, that is not the extent of the film so we are looking at a slew of cliche baseball terms like ‘struck out’ and ‘blooper’ in many review headlines this week.
Regardless of this, many box office analysts pegged the movie near a $20 million opening which is rather good for September. The marketing might behind this one was pretty strong so if an opening near that mark (which would put it on pace with a significantly better baseball movie in Moneyball) does not happen then this might put the brakes on the onslaught of baseball films that we are seeing until the Jackie Robinson movie 42 debuts next spring.