Review: The Rookie

Raul Julia plays a German (!) criminal named Strom, who is the head of a car theft ring. Clint Eastwood is the auto theft cop trying to bring him and his cohorts (Tony Plana, Sonia Braga, and Xander Berkeley among them) to justice. After homicide takes over the case, Eastwood is reluctantly teamed with rookie Charlie Sheen, who is a good cop but riddled with anxiety issues. Tom Skerritt plays Sheen’s dad, Lara Flynn Boyle is Sheen’s main squeeze.

 

Probably one of the worst films director-star Clint Eastwood has ever been involved in, but so boring that most people tend to forget about it. This 1990 clunker tries for some kind of weird blend of “Dirty Harry” film, Richard Donner action flick (“Lethal Weapon”), and Timothy Dalton-era James Bond film. It’s an obnoxious mess when it’s not entirely dull – which is most of the time. Eastwood has directed some very fine films (“Play Misty for Me” in particular), but he’s also directed a lot of shit – “The Eiger Sanction”, “Firefox”, “Sudden Impact”, “Heartbreak Ridge”, “Absolute Power”). Here he seems to be recycling clichés from all of his previous cop flicks but turned up to 11. You know you’re in for hell when treated to one of the worst, most ham-fisted opening scenes from an Oscar-winning director in cinematic history. Poor Charlie Sheen is left stranded playing the ultimate cop movie cliché scene suffering PTSD/anxiety nightmares. Not to be outdone, Eastwood’s veteran cop character has a minority partner who gets killed in an early scene. It's a blatant “Dirty Harry” re-tread. It doesn’t get any better from there really, and the two actors are like oil and water on screen. Yes, they’re meant to be mismatched cops, but they seem more like actors who just don’t want to be sharing scenes together. There’s a difference and it’s visible, and the wannabe buddy-cop humour is groan-worthy.

 

This isn’t Eastwood’s worst performance, just one of his more half-hearted and disinterested. The poor man’s “Lethal Weapon” action is loud, dumb, and incongruous with the rest of the film. As a director, Eastwood sure ain’t no Dick Donner, and he’s definitely the wrong director. Donner’s style could be loud and unsubtle but at least it was usually exciting and light-hearted. Clint is ham-fisted but boring, and the film moves at an agonisingly slow pace. The villains in particular are rolled out far too slowly.

 

Charlie Sheen was apparently in a bad way during filming, and his performance suggests a guy going through hell just trying to get to the end of the film and cash the cheque. Admittedly more of a movie star than a legit actor, Sheen has decent acting ability and charisma for days. He gives a slightly better performance than Eastwood and isn’t exactly miscast as a brooding and serious cop. He’s just boring and mopey, aside from the one scene where he finally blows up and is absurd. He wildly overplays the scene.

 

The best thing here is Raul Julia and even he isn’t very good. Hammy beyond belief and silly as hell, he’s also miscast as a German, but at least he isn’t boring. Playing a very Bond villain-esque character he doesn’t belong in the same universe as anything else here but at least he’ll keep you awake. It’s just a shame he’s not in it enough, despite the film overall being 20 minutes too long. Given the wildly different story elements and tones you get the impression screenwriters Boaz Yakin (The 1990 version of “The Punisher”, director of “Fresh”) and Scott Spiegel (co-writer of the fun “Evil Dead II”) weren’t exactly working close together. It’s also an unnecessarily profane script to the point of total juvenility. In tiny roles, Tom Skerritt and Tony Plana are fine but underused. As the evil Bond girl to Julia’s Bond villain, Sonia Braga is an acquired taste, and in my view makes zero impression as the wannabe Grace Jones of the film. She offers no intimidation, no charisma, nothing, getting little to do and even less to say. Even worse is Pepe Serna as an angry police lieutenant cliché. He’s appalling in a film that already has Lara Flynn Boyle.

 

There are elements here – chiefly some of the casting – that you could see something fun being created out of. However, the script is awful, the direction heavy-handed, and the whole thing is boring, disjointed, wildly inconsistent, and disappointing. Dreadfully underlit by Jack N. Green (“Unforgiven”, “Absolute Power”) as well.

 

Rating: D-