The Rookie proved to be Clint Eastwood's final cop movie, and here's why it should have been the finale to his Dirty Harry franchise. Eastwood became a movie star thanks to his role in classic Westerns such as Sergio Leone's Dollars movie trilogy, but arguably his most famous role came with the original Dirty Harry. This 1971 thriller saw Eastwood's San Francisco detective willing to break rules to take down a sniper terrorizing the city. The movie provided the star with several iconic moments and lines, including his famous "Do you feel lucky?" speech.
Dirty Harry was a huge success, but it was also controversial, with several critics like Pauline Kael dubbing it "fascist." The movie was such a success that Eastwood returned for the 1973 sequel Magnum Force, which saw Harry taking on vigilante police officers. He would reprise the role three more times, ending with 1988's The Dead Pool, and would play more police officers in movies like The Gauntlet or 1984's Tightrope - a rare Eastwood slasher.
The Rookie from 1990 proved to be his swansong in the cop movie genre and saw his grizzled veteran detective Nick Pulovski team with Charlie Sheen as his new partner David Ackerman, the titular rookie. Eastwood agreed to direct and star in the buddy cop thriller so Warner Bros would fund his pet project White Hunter Black Heart, and The Rookie became famous for having almost twice as many stuntpeople as it did actors. The movie was aiming for a Lethal Weapon-style tone, but sadly, The Rookie is one of Eastwood's least effective thrillers. It's overlong, filled with cop movie cliches and oddly mean-spirited violence, though it has some very impressive action sequences. There's a lack of emotion driving The Rookie also, but that could have been helped had the movie been the Dirty Harry movie franchise finale.
The Dead Pool was Eastwood's final time playing Harry but proved to be a flat thriller that felt more like a TV movie than a Dirty Harry finale. The Rookie's Pulovski is almost a parody of Eastwood's tough screen persona, spitting out tough-guy dialogue and chewing donuts while obsessively pursuing Raul Julia's villain. There is a shade of motivation in that Pulovski wants to end his career with a major bust to prove his worth, but this is mostly sidelined. Since Eastwood is essentially playing the role anyway, The Rookie should have been retooled into a proper Dirty Harry sendoff.
This would work, as Eastwood's Pulovski ends the story passing the torch to Sheen's Ackerman anyway. The Rookie feels more like a Dirty Harry movie than The Dead Pool ever did, and it would have granted Eastwood - who took Dirty Harry from John Wayne - and fans of the character a proper goodbye to the series. While this may have improved the movie, it still wouldn't have fixed some fundamental flaws. At two hours The Rookie often drags, the scene where Eastwood's character is assaulted by Julia's henchwoman is still unpleasant and even by the standards of the genre, having Pulovski straight-up murder Julia's wounded villain is rough. There was a better version of The Rookie to be produced, and had it been a Dirty Harry finale that explored the complex legacy of the character, maybe that would have helped its reception.