Al Percolo (Albert Brooks), a major-league baseball scout-complete with straw hat and polyester pants-cooks his own pasta in motel rooms, where he watches old movies, including “King Kong,” which allows him to muse, “If only he could pitch.”
Percolo is also on a personal losing streak. One kid he has signed for his employer, the New York Yankees, is currently batting 0 for 61. Another, a college-freshman star lured away from the campus, freaks out in front of the Yankee Stadium crowd, throws up on the mound and goes racing out of the place.
Instead of firing the scout, the Yankee general manager (Lane Smith) punishes him by sending him to the Mexican boonies. Traveling through small towns south of the border, Percolo rides on rickety buses, stays in scruffy hostelries and discovers that there are vendor carts and animals on the diamonds, including a goat at third base.
But one afternoon, he witnesses the spectacle of a young ballplayer being carried onto the field as if in a religious procession. He is a pitcher with the unlikely name of Steve Nebraska (Brendan Fraser), who is such a local hero the restaurants comp his tacos. A veritable phenom, he throws so fast (109 m.p.h.), he knocks over the catcher. What’s more, he’s a home run slugger.
Nebraska, it turns out, is a modest lad, naive, extremely appealing to women and very weird. (One of his passions is doing laundry.) When the Yankees’ general manager spitefully fires Percolo, he signs up his discovery himself and holds a bidding auction, with the Yanks snaring him with a $55 million offer. But after the kid goes bananas at the press conference, angrily picking up a photographer, the club demands he undergo a psychiatric exam.
Picking a shrink out of the Yellow Pages, Percolo comes up with an “H. Aaron” (Get it, baseball fans?), who is played by Woody Allen perennial Dianne Wiest. She quickly finds that Nebraska is “disconnected” but agrees to write a letter to the Yankees declaring that he is fit to play ball, but only on the condition that Al bring his protege in for daily therapy sessions.
Based on a New Yorker article by Roger Angell, “The Scout” was directed by Michael Ritchie (“Diggstown”) and written by Andrew Bergman (co-writer of “Blazing Saddles” and writer-director of “The Freshman”), Monica Johnson and Brooks. While many of the segments in the first half are bright and funny, and the acerbic performance of Brooks appealing as usual, it is not enough.
Everything disintegrates midway through, becoming bogged down in the ballplayer’s murky psychological problems and finally falling apart with a silly finale. Along the way, Dr. Aaron effortlessly discovers the roots of Nebraska’s problems and he changes his attitude toward the game.
The movie, incidentally, includes walk-ons not only by real ballplayers such as Bret Saberhagen and Ozzie Smith but singer Tony Bennett, TV broadcaster Bob Costas and Yankee owner George Steinbrenner.
”THE SCOUT”
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(STAR)(STAR)
Directed by Michael Ritchie; written by Andrew Bergman, Albert Brooks and Monica Johnson, based on the New Yorker article by Roger Angell; photographed by Laszlo Kovacs; production designed by Stephen Hendrickson; edited by Don Zimmerman and Pembroke Herring; music by Bill Conti; produced by Albert S. Ruddy and Andre E. Morgan. A 20th Century-Fox release; opens Friday at The Biograph, Esquire and Lincoln Village and outlying theatres. Running time: 1:41. MPAA rating: PG-13. Language.
THE CAST
Al Percolo………………………………Albert Brooks
Steve Nebraska………………………….Brendan Fraser
Dr. Aaron………………………………..Dianne Wiest
Ron Wilson…………………………………Lane Smith