April (Web-only) 2002

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Three months into 2002, we finally have a film that seems to have won everybody's heart, conservative and liberal, young and old. But the box office points to a very different champion. Other heavily promoted releases are producing the all-too-familiar sound of yawns, grumbles, and unintentional laughter. Is any of it really worthwhile? Do these stories mean anything?

Until now, screenwriter John Lee Hancock was best known for penning A Perfect World, directed by and starring Clint Eastwood. But this week Hancock has delivered a rare gift to moviegoers, a G-rated family film that has audiences cheering and critics raving. Many are saying Dennis Quaid gives the best performance of his career in the leading role. In fact, The Rookie is the most acclaimed G-rated film since David Lynch's The Straight Story.

Sources say very few details in this true story have been altered to please the crowd—there's no Beautiful Mind revisionism to make a fairy tale out of difficult fact. Hancock and screenwriter Mark Rich found the tale of Major League Baseball pitcher Jim Morris powerful enough to inspire audiences without adding sentimental glop. And what a story: Morris surrendered his baseball career and his dreams when he injured his shoulder and doctors told him he'd never get his impressive abilities back. So he built a new life as a husband and a father, a community baseball coach, and a high school chemistry teacher. That's remarkable on its own, but when Morris's students challenged him to chase his dream one last time, he went for it. At 40 years old. And the dream came true.

Sports movies are too often tailored to convince us that all we need is willpower and a dream. The Rookie could easily have become a cliché about ...