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This film image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Clint Eastwood, left, and Justin Timberlake in a scene from "Trouble with the Curve." The film, about an aging and ailing baseball scout, will be released on Sept. 21. (AP Photo/Warner Bros. Pictures, Keith Bernstein)


Where "Moneyball" was a study in sabermetrics and a depersonalized, numbers-crunching approach to assessing a player's worth, "Trouble" is completely old school. In this world of baseball, the computer will never replace intuition and the human eye for talent.

"Anybody who uses a computer doesn't know this game," snarls Gus Lobel (Clint Eastwood), a veteran Atlanta Braves scout who may be losing his eyesight but hasn't lost his ability to feel the game simply through the sound of the ball hitting a bat or a mitt.

"Trouble with the Curve" differs from "Moneyball" much in the same way that Lobel's approach to baseball is dramatically different from the high-tech mindset of the young bucks in the Braves' front office.

Where "Moneyball" was high-concept and slickly made, "Trouble" is determinedly old-fashioned, unapologetically conventional storytelling. It may be cliche-ridden and somewhat predictable, but it's an entertaining and appealing film. And like the best baseball movies, it serves as the foundation for telling a bigger story: in this case, the rebirth of love between a father and daughter.

The father is the proud, stubborn Lobel, who lives for the game. He spends his days traveling the back roads in a beat-up car and spending his time in honky tonks, cheap motels and rundown ballparks. In contrast, his only daughter, Mickey (Amy Adams), is a hotshot Atlanta lawyer who is about to make a big move up to partner at her firm. The two have an arm's length, dysfunctional relationship -- until the day she realizes dad may be on the verge of being put out to pasture by the Braves and she takes off with him (uninvited and unwelcomed) on what could be his final scouting trip.

Director Robert Lorenz and writer Randy Brown -- a couple of first-timers, although Lorenz has worked with Eastwood for years as a producer -- strike the mother lode with the casting of Gus and Mickey.

As the father and daughter, Eastwood and Adams have remarkable chemistry. Eastwood is crusty and thoroughly at home in the latest of his last-stand-of-the-old-timers roles, which date back to 1993's "In the Line of Fire." Adams, who may be Hollywood's most versatile actress, is perfect as a career woman who has father problems and commitment issues and struggles with a sublimated love of baseball (give her a drink, and she can rattle off obscure stats from bygone eras).

Thrown into the mix partway through his road trip is Johnny Flanagan (a thoroughly ingratiating Justin Timberlake), a former phenom signed by Gus who threw out his arm and is now a scout for the Boston Red Sox. On the fringes are an array of old-time baseball men such as Pete Klein (John Goodman), Gus' boss and best friend.

So good are the stars that they cover a lot of the film's problems.

Brown's script has some funny and insightful lines -- and even more that sound that way because of the skillful way Eastwood, Adams and Timberlake deliver them. Some of the "bad guys" in the film -- the back-stabbing lawyers at Mickey's firm, an ambitious Braves executive who is Gus' nemesis, an arrogant high school star -- are really just stick figures set up to be knocked down (as enjoyable as that is). And Lorenz has Eastwood's leisurely approach to direction, but he lacks his sense of when to trim the unnecessary.

But as long as those three are on the screen, there is a glow to the film. "Trouble with the Curve" may not be the Game 6 of the 1975 World Series, but it's a fine afternoon or evening at the ballpark.


* * ½

Rating: PG-13 (for language, adult themes and some sensuality)
Director: Robert Lorenz
Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes