The Scout (1994)

(On TV, May 2021) You can watch The Scout for its casting (Albert Brooks and Brendan Fraser with a little bit of Dianne Wiest — an interesting combination), or for its focus on baseball, or for its premise in following a disgraced baseball scout finding “the best baseball player that ever lived” in Mexico. What you won’t do, however, is watch it because it’s any good, since in chasing down far too many rabbits (baseball excellence, scout aiming for redemption, protagonist with central trauma, mental illness treatment, satire of celebrity media) and too many tones (anything from heartwarming pseudo-parental bonding to broad comedy), The Scout loses itself into a jumble of different ideas imperfectly executed. It’s not a difficult film to watch nor is it all that obnoxious, but it is a mess and it ends up raising more questions than satisfaction. At least Fraser is not bad (in a role that portends his take on George of the Jungle, oddly enough) and baseball fans will probably enjoy the look at mid-1990s New York Yankees, but otherwise, it’s more frustrating than anything else.