Analyzing The Movie 'The Fool'

ENG COMP II
Dec. 10, 2008

Never Give Up

“The Rookie” is a 2002 Walt Disney movie that is based on the real-life story of Jim Morris that stars Dennis Quaid in the lead role. “The Rookie” is also a movie that reflects not only our nations' culture, but also the collective attitude we have towards believing in an individuals' dreams. When a shoulder injury ended his minor league pitching career, Jim Morris resorted to the next best thing: coaching. But Jim's team, The Owls, know their coach is a great ball player and thus make a deal with him: if they win the district championship they want him to try out for a major-league team. Going from worst to first, the team makes it to state and Jim is forced to live up to his end of the deal.
At the age of 35 he makes it onto a minor league team and now has to deal with the pressures of a “younger mans'” sport, life on the road and being separated from his wife and family. The pressures build and like a typical Disney movie, the dream becomes reality at what would seem to be the absolute last moment. Quaid, as Jim Morris, would then take the mound that very same night while his friends and family watched, some from their homes but most from the stands. Morris would then continue to play as one of the relief pitchers for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays over the next two seasons before officially calling it quits. The theme for this movie is obvious and simple: Never give up on your dreams, for it is never too late to believe in them.
From the beginning of the movie we see Morris as an adolescent in a variety of locations and weather conditions, but we always see him pitching a baseball. That is until his mother cries out to him saying: “Jimmy, your father and I need to talk to you.” By now Jimmy is well aware of what his father, who is in the U.S. Marines, is going to say. For the fourth time they are relocating and Jimmy has to put his pitching dreams on hold. That is until his father gets a permanent duty station in Big Lake, Texas. With a bit more exposition and rising action Jimmy meets Henry Sampson in the town store where he learns the town doesn't care much for baseball, but they do care about something else – dreams. Henry then relates the story of the towns' very beginnings and how a man with dreams of finding oil “right under his feet” got the financial, and spiritual, help he needed from two nuns. The movie steps back in time to 1921 where the camera follows the nuns as they are shown blessing the field with rose pedals and reciting a prayer to Saint Rita, the patron saint of impossible dreams. While the men waited for the oil that would eventually come, they passed the time playing baseball. A few of the men were able to fulfill yet another dream as they got drafted into the major leagues. After hearing the story, the camera follows a teenage Jimmy riding his bike to the
field where, on camera close up, he brushes off the pitchers' strip and with a look of determination and steadfastness he digs into the mound with his sneaker and looks at the original oil well. A camera close up shows the sign on the well, 'SANTARITA No. 1 Completed May 27, 1923'. When it pans back to Jimmy, time has moved forward 20 years, still standing on that very same mound but now as a full grown man however his look is not the same and the well has been out of operation for quite some time. His close up look and facial expression tells us of a dream, like the oil well, that got 'dried up' before its' time as he digs his boots into the pitchers' mound. However, as a reminder that not all is as it seems to be, the camera focuses on Jimmy's truck where a medallion of Saint Rita hangs from the rear-view mirror. From the man who dreamed of finding oil, to the nuns who dreamed of getting their moneys' worth, to the town that was founded and thrived on those dreams, to Jimmy, and to everyone whoever was or has been, they all have an individual dream they are willing to pursue. They are not unique in this, as it is something that can be traced to, and shared with, the founding fathers of our nation. They had a dream for freedom and representation that they were willing to fight and die for. Two world wars and countless others were fought for one main ideal – to keep the dream alive. Whether the dream be for territory or freedom from oppression, it does not matter. Keeping, pursuing and accomplishing the dream is within everyone of us and, as is the case with Jim Morris, it does not matter how long it takes; dreams can be fulfilled. The movie “The Rookie” serves to remind us that in todays' culture that while our dreams may be individual they can, and often do, reach father than our imagination could ever anticipate. In our modern day, dreams are fulfilled everywhere by those willing and determined enough to make them happen. While these dreams may be on an individual basis, they can be, and are often, shared across the nation. One only has to look at the world of sports to bear witness to some of the most compelling individual efforts that have a nation dreaming right along with them. Lance Armstrong won the grueling Tour de France bicycle race seven times after beating testicular cancer. The 2008 Summer Olympics, where the best of the best across the world come to compete, saw Michael Phelps win a world-record eight Gold medals in swimming. To accomplish his dream Phelps would have to swim two major races a day, each day, for four days straight. And a majority of Americans would watch and be with him stroke for stroke cheering him on, praying for the dream that would come true. Closer to home, Mary Alison Milford, a Fayetteville native, competed in the Paralympics on the U.S. Wheelchair Basketball team that defeated Germany for the Gold Medal. I dare anyone to attend a championship game anywhere, and to tell me that they could not physically feel the home-town audiences' presence. You can taste it in the air, it is a live electricity that raises the hair on your arm, it is the simple awe and power of the many becoming one for a dream and it is never too late to dream. Even if the dream is as individually personal as graduating from school with a Masters degree 20 years after you first started taking classes. Dare I to dream and see the words Cum Laude on my diploma? I believe I just have.

Work Sited
The Rookie. Dir. John Lee Hancock. Perf. Dennis Quaid, Rachel Griffins, Brian Cox; screenplay by Mike Rich. Walt Disney Pictures, 2002. DVD. Walt Disney Home Video. 2002.