Photo Opportunity #74: A Rookie Rarity

Photo Opportunity #74: A Rookie Rarity 

Aside from our dedicated Rookie page, The Rookie is a film that doesn’t really get a lot of coverage here on the Archive. It was, and still is a film that often draws mixed opinions. I remember first seeing it at the cinema at the start of 1991 – That same year, the global landscape was marked by a rise in international terrorist incidents, and as such, a lot of actors and actresses remained grounded while promoting their latest project, many just didn’t fancy stepping onto a jet plane and travelling. This was the case with Clint too, the film was promoted and Clint pushed the film – usually via a satellite link up from L.A. 

It’s very much a typical buddy cop movie, with Clint playing the familiar grizzled, pissed off character of Nick Pulovski – a veteran cop and Charlie Sheen as the rookie cop David Ackerman. Together they are assigned to smashing an outfit stealing high end, luxury cars. The group are led by both Raul Julia as Erich Strom and Sônia Braga as his partner Liesl. 

The film is packed with some great action sequences, some impressive stunt work and a rather embarrassing rape scene which didn’t do the film any favours. Eastwood was also criticised for casting two Hispanic actors as German characters?  There are also some moments of enjoyable light relief, but overall, it is the script (especially Sheen’s lines) that let the film down. 

The film received mostly negative reviews from critics. The Variety staff added to the general dismay with the film saying, "Overlong, sadistic and stale even by the conventions of the buddy pic genre, Clint Eastwood's The Rookie is actually Dirty Harry 5 1⁄2 since Eastwood's tough-as-nails cop Nick Pulovski could just as easily be named Harry Callahan." In fact, one does wonder if this was just another exchange film with Warner Bros, a trade off that gave Clint the green light to make the previous (and much more personal project) White Hunter, Black Heart (1990)?  

Clint followed up The Rookie with Unforgiven (1992), a film which came from the other end of the spectrum and would ironically cement Clint’s reputation as a master film director. How things can turn around in the movie business… 

Anyway, for the summer season I thought I’d post this fantastic shot of Clint from The Rookie. It was originally sourced from a 35mm transparency which was part of the Warner Bros publicity campaign, but it’s rarely seen these days.