Director: Robert Lorenz

Talent: Clint Eastwood, Amy Adams, Justin Timberlake

Clint Eastwood plays Gus, an aging baseball scout with failing eyesight but whose sense of hearing can pick out the sweetest shots. On the verge of being retired, he gets one last assignment, during which he must address his distant relationship with his firebrand daughter (Amy Adams), who is about to make partner in a big law firm. Et cetera.

Trouble With The Curve harks back to The Baseball Movie as a US institution loved at the best of times for the manner in which it works grand narratives—the underdog rising, the miraculous comeback—through a sport reduced to two things on the cinema screen: the home run and the strike out. These narrative paradigms were recently disturbed for the better by Moneyball, which sought to break down the sport’s on-screen mythology, and HBO comedy Eastbound & Down, which ridiculed classic clichés, broadly undermining the institution. Unfortunately, Trouble With The Curve is entirely formulaic, despite a rather charming performance from Adams, and simply touches the bases to capitalise on a new thirst for baseball narratives stirred up by more novel approaches than its own.