Waste of time

Too many fans seem to be blown away

Let's be realistic.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

One of several films about beaten-up professional sports stars. One had Charlton Heston. This one has Nick Nolte. I get all of them mixed up. Usually the star has a final triumph and then quits while he's at the top, rather like Robert Redford in "The Natural". Come to think of it, the story doesn't have to be about sports. Charlton Heston played a similar role in the much better "Will Penny," as an aging cowboy realistically reduced to a life of three baths a year.Nick Nolte has some good scenes in this one. He's a laid-back football player for the North Dallas Bulls. He's not noticeably old but he's been so battered by playing the game he loves that he's dispirited, and the management doesn't like it. He should be playing for "the team." The management consists of Steve Forrest, Charles Durning, and G. D. Spradlin (in a semi-sympathetic role for a change). At the speech-ridden end, Nolte realizes that their argument about playing for the team is just so much horse hockey designed to win the championship and get Forrest's photo on the cover of time. Forrest is so rich he doesn't need the money that the team will make because he's a steel magnate, and a money magnet to boot. He only wants the glory, which is paid for by the blood of his players. Now, is that egocentricity or not? Nolte quits, presumably marries the girl (Dayle Hadden, beautiful but can't act), and retires to raise horses. Nolte was a little nervous about his two Big Scenes in the movie but he was my supporting player in "Weeds" and "Everybody Wins", so I helped him over the rough spots, as is the duty of any old pal.Genuine football fans -- and I'm not among their number -- will probably be disappointed because there aren't many scenes of football being played. Only one, really, and the set up isn't so hot, so it isn't as exciting as it should be. Redford's "The Natural," by contrast, had a great set up for the final game and the climax was spectacular and satisfying to our glands if not our aesthetics. Here, the most harrowing scene is when Nolte suffers a steroid shot behind his lemniscus in order to keep himself upright.The chief problem with the film is its lack of focus. What the hell is going on? Fast Eddy could talk about shooting pool in "The Hustler" and we could feel that his description, limited to only a few sentences, was authentic. The Germans call it Funktionslust, the love of doing what one does well. I didn't get it from Nolte or anybody else on the team, a couple of whom were bat-crap bonkers. None of them LOVED playing football.I guess the moral that we can drag in from somewhere outside the noösphere is that playing along with the team is childish and then when you grow up, you follow your own bliss. Spradlin even gets to quote the passage from St. Paul about "when I became a man, I put away childish things." But it's very confusing because we're told so often that Nolte has far more love for the game than he does for raising horses. His Funktionslust is a "childish thing"? I mean, you can see that the calculus doesn't quite work out. When I was a kid I wanted to be a catcher for the New York Yankees, but when I became a man I put away that childish thing because I realized I was a lousy ball player. Nolte, on the other hand, is supposed to be very good.Well, you can make up your own mind. I found it a little monotonous and basically dull and at cross-purposes with itself.

"Better football through chemistry" is a line of Nick Nolte's as he's being shot up with painkillers before the big game. When I first saw this in 1979, I found it amusing; now I find it prophetic. Sure it has it's sexist moments, but those are mere reflections of the times. The theme is that of abuse. These are modern gladiators, and we watch this sport as did the Romans. It's our bread and games. The new findings that NFL teams sent injured players into games full of drugs gives this film new meaning. Head injuries now show concussions that were untreated, and old players now have addictions and crippling arthritis. This was an amusing movie in it's day, but it's not as funny anymore.

A professional football team makes a season-ending push for the playoffs. The film really tries to belabor the point that playing professional football is hard on the body, with Nolte wincing in pain with almost every movement he makes. Similarly, the ills of professional sports are exaggerated to stress the greed and ruthlessness of this cutthroat business. Nolte is fine as the aging wide receiver while Davis is surprisingly effective in his film debut as the quarterback. Also good is Spradlin as the stern coach who seems to be modeled after Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry. The cast features the late Oakland Raider Matuszak as a fierce lineman.

Just saw this on DVD again after many years and it is, in my mind at least, the best and most honest book about the doings and going- ons behind the screens of pro football out there. Peter Gent was a very good possession receiver, great hands, not much speed but definitely an asset to the late 60s "America's Team". Nick Nolte portrayed his character Phil Elliott pretty much as he intended. Both G. D. Spradlin and Mack Davis were right on the money as the Meredith and Landry characters, great typecasting and real good direction. The one thing different and that I felt really took away from the main story as it was written was the elimination of the "Clinton Foote" character, Tex Schramm in real life, and the sort- of breaking up the instances of his character influence onto the owner, his brother and the Charles Durning coach, all of which didn't even come close to the real story. Too bad, it would have been better with someone, say Telly Savalas or maybe Robert Duvall as Clinton. The ending of the book was also considered real shocking along with some of the characters that made it up which was all Hollywood's doing I am sure, and the Delma Huddle/ Bob Hayes character was also played down except where it was necessary with his injuries and the drama leading up to Nolte's quitting speech "B.A., B.A., you, the owners the coaches, you're the team... We're the equipment!" One thing I would like to know is if the movie director let Matuzak just take what he always took before his Raider games just to get the real life emotions coming out? Probably not but would still like to know. Bo Svendson was believable as Joe Bob but just barely, his manicured nails gave him away and he just didn't come across too good as an offensive lineman, the muscles just weren't in the right places and neither was the demeanor. Matuzak's pre- game hype up was OK but Svendson's reaction was pretty hokey.