Tough cop Clint Eastwood and his new partner Charlie Sheen (the rookie of the title) go on an orgy of destruction to catch baddie Raul Julia in this crash bang wallop cop thriller. Lots of action, rattled along at a rapid pace by Eastwood wearing his director's hat, doesn't conceal the fact that The Rookie is disappointingly formula stuff, poorly served by an indifferent script. It's as if Eastwood got fed up with everyone else making second-rate Dirty Harry rip-offs, and decided to make one himself. Eastwood's cop is the grim avenger you would expect, but Sheen is pretty unconvincing and the usually excellent Julia is a dreadfully clichéd villain, complete with indefinable (and bad) foreign accent. To cap it all, even Eastwood's normally sound directing skills seem to have deserted him. Slip your brain into neutral, though, and you may enjoy this mindless slice of mayhem well enough.

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