Mr. Eastwood. The screenplay for The Rookie seems to have been pumped up from a script originally intended as a segment for a half-hour television series. There's not much of a story." He wasn't impressed with the special effects either saying, "the movie devotes itself to extended set pieces, mostly chases, which are so lazily thought out and edited that the audience is always ready for the twists that are supposed to surprise." Also in regards to the stunt work, author MK of Time Out in London commented, the "movie is full of caricatured cops and robbers, and punctuated with interminably dull car-chases." Alternatively though, Dave Kehr of the Chicago Tribune felt the quality of the stunt work was superb, commenting that they were, "the most spectacular action sequences Eastwood has ever filmed." Noted critic Leonard Maltin gave the film a star and a half, somewhat approving of the stuntwork by figuratively mentioning, "there's one good freeway crackup" but in the end, felt the theme amounted to "Formula filmmaking that even bored its intended audience." Other movie critics, like Jeffrey Lyons of WPIX, applauded the performances of the lead characters and called the film "Tough and gritty. Fires with a full clip. Eastwood and Sheen are terrific together." Equally swayed in opinion was film critic Susan Granger of American Movie Classics: "This slam-bam, action-packed thriller packs a wallop." Giving the film a C+ rating, critic Owen Gleiberman from Entertainment Weekly posted, "The Rookie is like a series of garish exploitation set pieces jammed into the shape of a buddy movie." He went further in his criticism saying, "as moviemaking goes, The Rookie is on the slovenly side. The plot makes almost no sense, and Eastwood directs in his usual toneless fashion." But on a lighter note, relating to the film's comedic appeal, he stated, "in this case, the fact that you can't always tell the intentional comedy from the unintentional isn't necessarily a drawback." In agreement on the lack of plausibility surrounding the plot, author Marshall Julius still offered though an almost entirely positive review, giving the film three and a half guns, exclaiming, "As directed by Eastwood, The Rookie is a deliberately silly, knockabout adventure which aims for outrageous and hits a bullseye. We're talking good, dumb, fun. Get your brains out and the beers in, and you're all set." Box office The film premiered in cinemas on December