LastingAware The greatest movie ever!

Seraherrera The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

Ogosmith Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Micah Lloyd Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

jonathanmark-77048 Plot: Clint Eastwood plays a veteran detective who gets stuck with a rookie cop (Charlie Sheen) to chase down a German crook (Raul Julia.) This will probably go down as one of my favorite Clint Eastwood films considering I'm one of those people that likes Eastwood but don't love him as much as some people. The story is very simple and straight to the point which I like. Both Eastwood and Sheen have really good chemistry with each other which is what a buddy film needs to make it work along with an engaging story.The rest of the supporting cast also does a good job especially Raul Julia(may he rest in peace) and Sonia Braga who brought enough menace to their roles that made them convincing villains.The action is very well done when it comes with some exciting stunt sequences that rival some movies today. The only 2 problems that I have are the pacing being a little slow and of course the famous rape scene where Sonia Braga take advantage of Clint Eastwood although they don't linger on it too much unlike other films which helped.The Rookie is a fun buddy cop film with 2 really good performances by the leads, good villains, fun action, and a good story. If you get a chance to see it, watch it you won't regret it.

jovana-13676 So, I hear they don't write interesting roles for women anymore these days? Maybe it's not patriarchy, but just a general lack of ideas. This film doesn't offer much - it's packed with action, but this one rape scene is a showstopper. Yes, it's a dominating woman, but not really PC. That's why I love it.

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.

James Hitchcock Clint Eastwood's "Dirty Harry" franchise officially came to an end with the fifth instalment, "The Dead Pool", in 1988, but Eastwood still seemed to be in love with the character because two years later he made what is effectively a sixth Dirty Harry film, "The Rookie". One critic even dubbed it "Dirty Harry 5½". The only difference is that Eastwood's character is here named Nick Pulovski rather than Harry Callaghan and the action is moved south down the California coast from San Francisco to Los Angeles.I won't waste too much time on the plot as it could be the plot of any bog-standard buddy-buddy tough cop movie. The veteran Pulovski and his younger partner David Ackerman (the rookie of the title) take on a German crime baron named Strom and his female sidekick Liesl. They specialise in grand theft auto and armed robbery, but have no objection to a little homicide on the side, or even a lot of homicide on the side, when it suits their interests.Most of the "Dirty Harry" films were directed by someone other than Eastwood himself, "Sudden Impact" being the only exception. Here, however, he both acts and directs. By 1990 he was an experienced director, and as far as its technical aspects are concerned the film is a good one. It was praised for the quality of its stunt work, especially during the various car chase and car crash scenes, and Eastwood's camera work and use of lighting combine to produce the impression of a fast- moving, exciting thriller.Unfortunately, the other aspects of the film are not so good, especially its acting and its script. Eastwood is simply playing a character he has played many times before, perhaps too many times before, albeit under different names, and brings nothing new to the film. Charlie Sheen is perhaps better as Ackerman. He appears to have been struggling with serious issues in his personal life, such as an alcohol and drug problem at the time of filming, and this may paradoxically have helped him to portray a character who is also struggling with issues in his personal life. (Ackerman is haunted by psychological guilt after the death of his brother in childhood). Raul Julia and Sonia Braga, however, are awful as Strom and Liesl. Just why someone thought it would be a good idea to cast the Puerto Rican Julia and the Brazilian Braga as Germans is one of those mysteries that defy rational explanation, especially as Julia and Braga make little attempt to suggest a Teutonic persona but simply play their characters as stereotypical Latinos who happen to have German names.The script is even worse than the acting. My principal objection to it is not that it is formulaic cops-and-robbers stuff, although it is certainly that. My objection would be to some of the social attitudes revealed in the film. Harry Callaghan had no time for by-the-book methods of law enforcement, and may himself have gone outside the law, but when he did so (at least in the original "Dirty Harry") it was because of a fervent desire to protect the public and bring dangerous criminals to justice. In the case of Nick Pulovski, however, going outside the law seems to be his standard modus operandi, and David Ackerman takes matters one stage further. For him breaking the law is not just something he does while on the job, it is also how he amuses himself during his idle moments of leisure. In one scene he manages to burn down a bar, something which you might have thought would have earned him at least instant dismissal from the force, if not a lengthy jail sentence, but he seems to get away with it. From the closing scenes we might conclude that extra-judicial executions are now standard LAPD operating procedure. Remind me to be extra-careful to stay on the right side of the law next time I visit LA. Equally objectionable is the characterisation of Liesl as a psychopathic nymphomaniac- the film contains one of the few woman-on-man rape scenes in cinematic history- which struck me as misogynistic. ."The Rookie" is not just an average cop thriller. It is a nasty, sadistically violent, unoriginal and generally below average cop thriller. Only Eastwood's accomplished direction saves it from a lower mark. 5/10