‘There’s gotta be a hundred reasons why I don’t blow you away. Right now I can’t think of one...’
Clint Eastwood directed two films released in 1990. The mostly forgotten American adventure movie White Hunter Black Heart, and the mostly forgotten buddy cop movie The Rookie. They both underperformed commercially, which is unusual for Eastwood’s films, and so he emerged less than two years later with Unforgiven – perhaps his most critically acclaimed directorial effort to date. While The Rookie is certainly a derivative and kinda empty movie, if you like buddy cop movies from this era, then there is enough fun stuff here to recommend it…
Sergeant Nick Pulovski (Eastwood) is the grizzled old cop who’ll do anything to get results and Detective David Ackerman (Charlie Sheen) is the wet-behind-the-ears rookie who is assigned as his partner. Raul Julia, a man who is very Mexican, somewhat bizarrely appears as a German criminal. Lara Flynn Boyle plays Ackerman’s put upon wife, Sarah. The plot involves a heist gone wrong, a kidnapping, an unfortunate rape sequence and an incredible barroom brawl.
As with all of Eastwood’s movies, The Rookie is technically competent and the plotting is effectively economical. The issue, however, is that to say ‘we’ve seen it all before’ in regards to this movie would be an understatement. By the time this film dropped in December of 1990 (which unfortunately for Eastwood put it head to head with Home Alone), we’d already enjoyed and endured Beverly Hills Cop, Lethal Weapon, 48 Hrs., Tango & Cash, Turner & Hooch and many many more. That’s not to say that the buddy cop movie was dead, but it was tired. I suppose one thing that does make The Rookie different from the rest is that Sheen and Eastwood don’t actually share much screen time. The entire second act of the movie sees them taking their own connected but geographically disparate paths. This is a shame because when they are onscreen together they share a wonderful chemistry. It’s an odd notion indeed to have a buddy cop movie where the cops never really get a chance to become buddies.
The Rookie is a solid entry in the buddy cop subgenre but it’s perhaps unsurprising that it is considered one of the lesser lights of Eastwood’s career. It’s a testament to his ability as a director that it’s still an eminently watchable film.
