How often does something come along that knocks you right on the top of your head and scream at the top of it’s lungs that yes, you’re not hallucinating, this checks ALL the boxes imaginable? I’ll save you the time. It’s rare. The Queens of the Stone Age working with Mark Ronson was pretty sweet. So was David Simon taking his talents north to tell the history of New York City in the 1970’s. Those two examples only checked two boxes though.
The Catcher Was a Spy checks damn near all of them.
First, a little bit of the ol’ plot synopsis for you.
Paull Rudd plays Moe Berg, a professional baseball player who played for the Red Sox and a handful of other teams throughout the 1920’s and 1930’s. He was never great, but he was always smart. Super smart. Wicked smart when he was with the Sox. He graduated from Princeton, a noted smart school, and Columbia Law School, a noted smart law school, and spoke several languages, a noted smart thing to do. Once his career was over, Berg was recruited to be a spy during World War II.
Okay, so that’s the gist. Smart baseball player becomes spy.
But let’s talk boxes checked, because The Catcher Was a Spy checks a lot of them.
Box 1: Paul Rudd.
Rudd generally doesn’t make bad movies. This is damn close to a fact. You can look it up or you can take my word for it. From Clueless all the way up to his current work in Marvel movies, Rudd has become as reliable as a movie star there is today. He can be funny and as of late, we’ve seen that he can do the quasi-action thing. The Catcher Was a Spy will no doubt feature two of those traits, along with him flexing his dramatic chops, which were last seen in Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
Let’s face it, Paul Rudd is an American treasure. And now he’s a spy, which leads me to box number 2.
Box 2: Spies yo!
Dude, movies about spy are good 99.4% of the time. The one exception is Allied. God that movie was terrible. But besides Allied, and again, that movie was soaking wet, hot garbage, spy movies are great. And you know what’s even better that a regular old spy movie?
Guess.
Box 3: World War II Spies, yo!
This is true. This is a fact. This is something that no one can disagree with. If someone does disagree with this, they are probably a spy and you should call the authorities.
Box 4: Baseball History
I’m a sucker for it. It’s true. I may not watch as much baseball as I used to and I may not pour over box scores like I used to, but drop a book about some random baseball player or a team from say, 1928, and I’ll read the jawn from cover to cover. Dude, I once read a book about the history of Fenway Park. That’s a building. And I read over 300 pages about it’s history. There’s something so pure and clean about old baseball stories.
Well, pure and clean if you ignore stuff like, you know, racism and shit. Ha, America.
Box 5: Baseball History Featuring the Red Sox
So if we’re talking boxes being checked, another example would be a book or a movie about baseball history that is specifically about my beloved Boston Red Sox and that right there is an example of two boxes being checked.
Ha, two boxes.
The Catcher Was a Spy checks five boxes. Yes, FIVE BOXES. By the law of checked boxes equals interest, that shit is through the roof and straight up equals my perfect movie. This movie is like Stefan talking about a club designed just for me. It has everything, Paul Rudd, spies, World War II spies, old timey baseball stuff and Red Sox history.
I can’t wait.
The Catcher Was a Spy is set to be released June 22.
Categories: Movies
Giddy Up America 
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