The Rookie

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Joe D this is Clint Film school 101. Very amateurish but you can see the beginings of a great movie director. Too long but the script has the loopy tie ins of his other films Two cool guys playing cops imposilble to miss seing Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 09/16/25 Full Review Anthony V This is a underrated movie with great action and whity one liners. Sure the acting isn't top tier but it should be ranked way higher than most of today's Netflix slop. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 09/16/25 Full Review Matthew D A great and gritty actioner with a tough as ever Clint Eastwood helming this underseen thriller. Director Clint Eastwood’s buddy cop action thriller The Rookie (1990) is surprisingly entertaining. Eastwood delivers chaotic car chases, severe shootouts, seedy cityscapes, dangerous drug deals, and ferocious fights. I love the shadowy lighting that illuminates faces and obscures the body. It looks so dynamic here in The Rookie. The whole city is cast in shadows. It’s stylish and cool with tons of toughness for an easy watch. The Rookie has acclaimed writers. Evil Dead 2 screenwriter Scott Spiegel and Uptown Girls director Boaz Yakin create a killer script. They really bring a lot of good humor like Eastwood asking everyone for a light for his cigars. The characters are realistic and well rounded. This is a complex crime narrative about the cops trying to catch a drug dealer. It’s like a dark and gritty take on The Gauntlet mixed with some Dirty Harry. They provide many huge twists and violent shocks. The one liners are constantly hilarious and hard hitting! Clint Eastwood is tough as nails as hardened Sergeant Nick Pulovski. Eastwood is basically still doing Dirty Harry here, but it totally works. He’s mean, violent, smart, brutal, and very amusing. Any time Eastwood says a one liner or shoots a guy is just fantastic. Him asking people to light his cigar never stops being funny. Charlie Sheen is quite good as the young rookie Detective David Ackerman, suffering from childhood trauma. Sheen showing his pain feels raw and real. Him trying to figure out how to be a real cop alongside Eastwood’s sneering sergeant is excellent. You’ll really want to watch your back after seeing all the things Sheen goes through in The Rookie. Tom Skerritt is great as David’s disapproving father Eugene Ackerman. Lara Flynn Boyle is sweet and pretty as David’s worried girlfriend Sarah Ackerman. Donna Mitchell gets a nice cameo as David’s mother Laura Ackerman. Puerto Rican actor Raul Julia is a riot with his every choice line as German drug dealer Ulrich Sigmund Strom. Brazilian actress and Alice Braga’s aunt Sônia Braga is creepy hitwoman Liesl Strom. Her climactic scene with Eastwood is horrifying. Pepe Serna is outrageously angry as Police Lieutenant Raymond Garcia. Marco Rodriguez’ crazy henchman Loco is fun to watch. Xander Berkeley cameos as a henchman Ken Blackwell. Tony Plana is good in his one major scene as Morales. Editor Joel Cox’ slick cuts keep the action coming. Cinematographer Jack N. Green shoots incredible shadowy nights and striking faces. The red lit bar looks awesome. Every action scene is intense and easy to follow. Production designers Judy Cammer and Ken Kaufman’s sleazy sets. Art director Ed Verreaux makes the city look ruined. The dangerous stunts are insane throughout The Rookie. The car stunts alone are wild. Clint Eastwood’s stunt double Buddy Van Horn was the assistant director, so I’m assuming he oversaw a lot of these sick shootouts and chases. The bar fight is crazy like the dog fights. Composer Lennie Niehaus’s score is cool and understated. In all, The Rookie is a blast thanks to Clint Eastwood and Raul Julia. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 09/03/25 Full Review thiago s Filme fraco, o roteiro é fraco, as cenas são fracas, a história é fraca, o elenco é fraco, e ninguém ajuda a melhorar o filme, os personagens são fracos, e o filme deveria ter cenas bem melhores e relevantes, para fazer o filme ser bom Rated 0.5/5 Stars •  Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 08/30/25 Full Review Todd B One rookie cop Ackerman being counseled for the death of his brother, when he was a child, by the police psych, I think, board has joined forces with Clint's supervisory character to take down a major bad guy threat with an entourage of exotic cars and tough men and lady. Good movie. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 03/17/25 Full Review Jithin K Easily the worst Clint Eastwood movie I've seen, as a director or actor. It's a buddy cop movie, that's where the plot starts and ends. It tries to use a whole lot of cliches in the most boring way possible. Charlie Sheen looks bored most of the time. Can't really distinguish between what's intentional and unintentional comedy. German villains in the story but casting Hispanic actors made a lot of stuff confusing for me until it was made clear by the third act. The Mexican stereotypes in the beginning only felt worse when I realized, that the Hispanic actors using the slurs towards them are supposed to be German in the film. There were a few okay action scenes and car chases but then the movie indulges in them too much and makes it repetitive. The whole thing felt like a few episodes from a TV series of that time in the middle of a season where the show loses its audience. And the sex scene just felt like Eastwood's desire to get dominated by Sonia Braga. It was very weird and just out of place with that scene where she rapes him. It couldn't be anything other than his thinly veiled kink. The possibility of that scene must be why he made this movie, I really can't see any other reason for the existence of this movie. Rated 1.5/5 Stars •  Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 04/26/24 Full Review Read all reviews

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