slightlymad22 Continuing my plan to watch every Clint Eastwood movie in order I come to The Rookie (1990)Plot In A Paragraph: A veteran cop (Eastwood) whose partner is killed, gets paired up with a by the book rookie (Charlie Sheen) who has to be taught the rules of the street by the older officer. The plot alone tells us we are not going to get anything original here. We've seen the story a hundred times before. Everything we see here is something that has worked in another Clint Eastwood detective movie. His character Nick Pulovski is a mean tempered, committed detective with a love of one liners much like Harry Callaghan. He doesn't want a new partner but he's forced to take one. Due to the veteran cop having a personal vendetta against the bad guy (He did kill his partner after all) we get the obligatory scene where he is pulled off the case. We know the drill. The cop will wage a private war no matter what his orders are, and the rookie will back his partner as far as the rule book allows. After initially disliking each other, the partners start to get on.?Veteran cop will need saving by the Rookie, who by now has disregarded the rule book. Then throw in a sex scene, a couple of chases and a shoot out at the end. Despite having the lowest budget of an Eastwood movie since Pale Rider (only $10 million dollars) and the lowest budget of an Eastwood cop movie for 13 years (The Gauntlet) it's all up there on the screen, displayed during The Rookie's many action sequences we get a lot of explosions and high speed chases. Eastwood certainly does well with what he had as it looks like a much more expensive movie. Looking at the budget, after three flops in a row, were Warner Bros starting to lose faith in Eastwood?? He had made Warner Bros a lot of money by this point, as his 20 previous movie for them usually performed well against their budgets, but none of his previous 7 movies had ended in the years top 10 highest grossers, since Sudden Impact in 1983. Since The Rookie was part of the White Hunter Black Heart deal with Warner Bros, with Eastwood making a more commercial movie of their choice, I'm not sure how much of the blame falls at Eastwood's door, but as actor and director he must take some of it. Even if he gives the best performance in the movie. Charlie Sheen is OK, if surprisingly subdued (He later admitted to being terrified of Clint, and said it showed in his performance) Raul Julia and Sonja Braga are disappointingly under used!! Action movies live and die by their villain, here we have two excellent actors, going through the motions of performing in parts, than have no lines worth speaking and no distinguishable identities.In a year dominated by Home Alone, Ghost, Pretty Woman and Dances With Wolves, The Rookie grossed $21 million at the domestic Box Office to end the year the 56th highest grossing movie of 1990.

Predrag The film uses all the most well worn tricks of the "buddy-buddy / old cop - rookie cop / poor down on his luck - rich privileged / rule breaking - rule following" action movies ever made and is at least honest enough not to try to pretend to be anything else. Clint Eastwood is an interesting choice in such a film and his performance is clearly better than the film actually demands. The Schwarzenegger like one-liners are made more amusing when coming from his lips although the crafting of a new catch phrase "You gotta light?" doesn't quite work. Charlie Sheen is mean, moody and handsome and isn't really required to be anything else, the dad-son "You were never there for me!" scenes are an embarrassment to be perfectly frank and could well have been omitted from the film.The story is simple about a veteran cop and his new partner, Charlie Sheen going on the rampage in LA for car thieves while in the pursuit of revenge for the murder of Eastwood's partner early on film by the leader of the criminal gang. It has Eastwood on good form with some good one liners and he is a joy to watch as he shows he is not over the hill and does what he does best in a cop role. Sheen puts on a good show and is convincing as a wet behind the ears rookie but soon breaks free from this when he goes berserk, as taught by his mentor Eastwood. The action scenes are great with some ferocious car chases, and none of the dodgy CGI you get theses days. The action scenes include a out of control car chase down the free way where a car transporter sheds it's load of luxury cars off the trailer into the traffic. The other stand out moment is when Eastwood and Sheen was escape a building ready to explode by driving out of the top floor window while the building blows up behind them. If you love Eastwood and his demeanor and quips and you love a good cop story this is something you need to see in one form or another.Overall rating: 8 out of 10.

mmunier Ha ha ha, Sometimes I think it's even more fun to read the reviews than watching the movies! The Rookie, another kind of miss match coppers, But "our" guy had quite an impressive variety of partners in his acting career. Since I love both of them, main stars, I was not fussy and just enjoy the ride. Sometimes I had to endure with much pain well crafted and highly recommended work. So that's the way it is for some of us. Our two heroes successfully take on the baddies and won, what more do you want! (oh sorry for the spoiler!) One guy suggested that you should not take it too seriously actually he used a double negative which would almost say the reverse. mind you I'm also pretty good at these things but I happened to notice it so wanted to share. You like Clint, you like Charlie...Go for it.

CherryBlossomBoy The scene with Sonia Braga raping Clint Eastwood would've been, for its stupidity, the lowest point in any other film. In "The Rookie" it's one of the highlights. The other one being the scene with Charlie Sheen trashing a biker bar. For some reason I like to watch them over and over again.Everything else seems to have been built around the two scenes and, consequently, has "filler" written all over. Eastwood was never a good actor. He's got a remarkable screen presence, but that alone, in this case, was not enough. He's a very good director, though, but here he didn't even bother with that. Overall, it's as if he wasn't sure whether he wants a relaxed action flick, or a suspense thriller, or a 70's type crime drama. For an action flick it's rather claustrophobic and noir, for a suspense thriller it's way too predictable (to the point of camp) and the dialog is very corny. For a crime drama it's terribly stilted and lacking in mise-en-scène. Even with all that aside, the timing was all over the place and many potentially good scenes were ruined by disinterested directing and editing.Before the clichés really began to plague Hollywood industry, the Rookie was already boasting many of them. The rookie cop maturing into an experienced crime-buster. The veteran cop aiming to score a big case. The criminal mastermind (not too bright, mind you). The yelling police captain.I don't know if cheesiness of dialog should be seen as a cliché - but this film has got it a-plenty. Same goes for miscasting. Charlie Sheen is wooden, Tom Skerritt is wasted, Pepe Serna acts like he's auditioning for "Ace Ventura", Sonia Braga is hardly worth a mention... and Raul Julia, as good actor as he was, could NEVER pass off as a German.