{"id":10845,"date":"2025-01-28T15:17:11","date_gmt":"2025-01-28T20:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=10845"},"modified":"2025-01-28T15:17:11","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T20:17:11","slug":"the-rookie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/01\/28\/the-rookie\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rookie"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Rookie <\/strong>(1990)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Warner Bros.\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 121 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence, brief sexual content, language, drugs)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Clint Eastwood\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Scott Spiegel and Boaz Yakin\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Lennie Niehaus\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Jack N. Green\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 7, 1990 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Clint Eastwood, Charlie Sheen, Raul Julia, Sonia Braga, Tom Skerritt, Lara Flynn Boyle, Pepe Serna, Marco Rodriguez, Pete Randall, Donna Mitchell, Xander Berkeley, Tony Plana, Paul Ben-Victor, David Sherrill, Hal Williams.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $21.6M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating:<\/strong> ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0The Rookie<\/strong> is an example of a pretty good Clint Eastwood movie. It\u2019s not a great one like Dirty Harry (1971), High Plains Drifter (1973) or Unforgiven (1992). It\u2019s good like The Enforcer (1976), Absolute Power (1997) and Blood Work (2002). It’s a solid albeit formulaic actioner starring Clint as an L.A. cop on the vengeance trail after his partner is murdered by German criminal Strom (Julia, Kiss of the Spider Woman), the leader of an international car theft ring.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Sgt. Nick Pulovski wants to get his man in the worst way. He\u2019s not about to let a little thing like a new inexperienced partner hamper his efforts. David Ackerman (Sheen, No Man\u2019s Land), the rookie of the title, has just been promoted to detective. Nick tells him nothing at first leaving David with no choice but to try and keep up with him. He\u2019s a rather passive sort who can\u2019t believe how flagrantly the senior detective violates procedure. He\u2019s also trying to deal with the guilt stemming from a childhood tragedy.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Nick causes Strom so much grief that he\u2019s forced to fold up his operations in L.A. and relocate. He takes Nick hostage after a foiled robbery attempt, demanding $2 million for his safe return. He\u2019s aided in his endeavors by his female companion Liesl (Braga, Kiss of the Spider Woman).<\/p>\n

\u00a0Naturally, the city isn\u2019t willing to pay. David\u2019s CO Lt. Garcia (Serna, Scarface) benches him, telling him he doesn\u2019t want to see his face for two weeks. Instead, the rookie cop goes on the warpath looking for Nick. He\u2019s been a rather passive sort up until this point. It was his hesitation to pull the trigger that resulted in his partner\u2019s current predicament. Now, he\u2019s truly pissed off! He\u2019s determined to find out where Nick is being held and he\u2019s not asking nicely.<\/p>\n

\u00a0This is where The Rookie<\/strong> really starts to cook. David shifts into total kick-ass mode. Riding a vintage motorcycle he borrows from Nick, he shows up at a rough bar frequented by assorted Hispanic lowlifes seeking information. He ends up burning the joint down. This is one of Sheen\u2019s better performances. He\u2019s actually believable as a rich kid getting back at his parents for ignoring his suffering as a child by being a cop. He manages to find his inner bad ass when it counts the most. He also manages to hold his own against Clint. Everybody knows that\u2019s not easy.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Overall, The Rookie<\/strong> is a decent action flick. Directed by Eastwood, it\u2019s a bit overlong at a shade over two hours. Some of it, like the opening sequence, is too dark. By that, I mean it\u2019s hard to see what\u2019s going on. What I find odd about it is the casting of Julia and Braga as Germans. He\u2019s Puerto Rican; she\u2019s Brazilian. He manages a passable German accent; she doesn\u2019t have a lot of dialogue. They don\u2019t give bad performances. It just seems to me Clint could have hired German actors for the roles. Why didn\u2019t he? It\u2019s just weird. That being said, you have to love the scene between Braga and Clint while his character is tied to a chair. You know the one I\u2019m talking about.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The rest of the cast is right on. Lara Flynn Boyle (Twin Peaks) is good as David\u2019s girlfriend who keeps urging him to finish law school. The character is somewhat underwritten, but Boyle makes the best of it. Marco Rodriguez, the psycho supermarket killer from Cobra, shows up as one of Strom\u2019s top guys. He\u2019s great! He always makes a convincingly slimy scumbag. Tom Skerritt (Alien) is also good as David\u2019s father who, at one point, tries to pay Nick to keep his son out of harm\u2019s way. That goes down pretty much how you\u2019d expect.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The jazzy score by Lennie Niehaus is great; it fits the movie perfectly. The action scenes, the airport finale in particular, are well executed. The bit where he drives a car out a second-story window to escape an explosion is pure 80s\/90s hokum. I love it! The screenplay by Scott Spiegel and Boaz Yakin offers up a good story with little in the way of surprises. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was watching the pilot episode for a new TV series. The Rookie<\/strong> is not, by any means, a bad movie. It\u2019s just one we\u2019ve seen before. The only difference is it bears Clint\u2019s signature style.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Clint does his usual good job as both lead actor and director. Sure, The Rookie<\/strong> is one of his lesser efforts. The thing is one of Clint\u2019s lesser efforts is still better than most of the bombastic efforts blowing out speakers in multiplexes these days. Plus, it\u2019s always fun to see him in action. We get to see him make a Dirty Harry face, you know the one, the angry look with the throbbing vein in his forehead. At 60, he was still the epitome of cool.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In short, The Rookie<\/strong> is a good movie. It has plenty of action and an engaging if too familiar storyline. Plus, it has Clint Eastwood. I don\u2019t know about you, but I\u2019ll never pass up a Clint Eastwood movie. I was raised better than that.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Rookie (1990)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Warner Bros.\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 121 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence, brief sexual content, language, drugs)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Clint Eastwood\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Scott Spiegel and Boaz Yakin\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Lennie Niehaus\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Jack N. Green\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 7, 1990 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Clint Eastwood, Charlie Sheen, Raul Julia, Sonia Braga, Tom Skerritt, Lara Flynn Boyle, Pepe Serna, Marco […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10891,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kick-ass-actioners"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/The-Rookie-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10845"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10893,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10845\/revisions\/10893"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}