Trouble with the Curve

Gus Lobel has spent decades as a baseball scout, and he can judge a hitter from the sound of the bat alone. Age is catching up with him, though, and his eyesight is failing, a problem he refuses to admit. With the Atlanta Braves weighing a decision on a highly touted young prospect, the front office grows uneasy about his judgment. The one person who could help is the daughter he would never ask: Mickey, an ambitious lawyer on the verge of partnership at her firm. Father and daughter have never gotten along, and the death of Gus's wife left a distance between them that has only widened. She agrees to travel with him to Atlanta, where their old conflicts resurface and she meets Johnny Flanagan, a former player who has become a scout himself.

The 2012 drama was directed by Robert Lorenz, who also produced alongside Clint Eastwood and Michele Weisler, from a screenplay by Randy Brown. It was Lorenz's first film as director; he went on to make The Marksman and In the Land of Saints and Sinners. Eastwood plays Gus, with Amy Adams as Mickey and Justin Timberlake as Johnny, supported by Matthew Lillard, Jack Gilpin and John Goodman. On a budget of 60 million dollars, it returned 49 million worldwide. On IMDb it holds 6.8 from 72,000 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 7 from 1,738 votes, a friendlier reception than the 5.6 from 203 critics' reviews.