Simply A Masterpiece

Great Film overall

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

The nice thing about this down-to-earth-hosed-over-qb-wins-the-big-one film is that your wife doesn't walk into the room just as a very foul word comes pouring out of the tv set. In fact, she'll enjoy it with you because there are no drugs, outrageous sex, or make-me-sick-and-shudder bone crunching neck snapping hits ala "Any Given Sunday" happening here. Jon Voight starts off as the despicable coach one can't help but detest (pompous control freak), but he then surprises you by confessing his shortcomings to the miracle game winning 4th string qb he cut from a previous team, realizing that loose cannon (improvising) qbs CAN win games, ala Johnny Unitas, Fran Tarkenton, and Doug Flutie. It is not deep, but definitely predictable, and is still a watchable, easy going, low-paid-guys-with-heart-DO-win, kind of dvd rental. This NOT Ben Hur! A good rainy day at home or drivein (good luck) film. Don't think so hard. Relax.

i'm not a bills fan, but this fact did not cloud my judgement. it's just a bad movie. why is it bad? totally unrealistic. first off, the movie started off in the playoffs, that's too short a time. the next thing is referring to the last two games in this movie, the afc championship game and the super bowl. in both games the bills are down 21-0 and win. i know that's not impossible, but here what is: the touchdowns scored by the bills offense. an offensive tackle on a REVERSE throwing a PASS? huh? except for the punt return that won the first game(unlikely in the way that happened too) all the bills scores looked stupid. then there's the old footage of the real nfl throughout the movie. on one clip i saw andre reed, #83, on the field before a game. if you're not going to have the real players in this game, don't show the footage. it ruins the atmosphere of the film. oh, yeah, look at randy moss and terrance shaw of the vikings walk out of the tunnel before the super bowl, then five minutes later see cris cater on the sideline. also, for a super bowl that is played in new orleans, it looked like the h h h metrodome. the one plus was the actual actors acted well. it's just that this movie had too many holes in it. c'mon, the bills and vikings in the super bowl? why, so two super bowl bum win one? please. i also wish they would have mentioned the year this stuper season was taking place in. andre reed hasn't played for the bills since '99, so i'll say '99. doug flutie was ok, gil bellows was cool, jon voight did good(but why is he in this turkey?) but this movie is awful

I don't normally write reviews, but this "film" was special. I couldn't turn it off. I don't believe I've ever seen a worse movie, but there I sat, watching. It was like a horrible car wreck with blood flowing all over the highway. It was disgusting, but I couldn't turn away. Where do I start? The movie seems to think it's a sports thriller, but it's so utterly ridiculous, it can only be a comedy, but it's not funny, not even in a dumb/silly way. It's like watching your cousins try to act out a skit on family get-togethers. It's painful to watch, but at least it's only for a minute or two. Second String went on for over an hour. Whoever was involved with making this movie should not work again. The writing, directing, acting, and everything was just terrible. The problem is I can't describe how bad it was; you just had to see it. And I'm sure this will NEVER be shown again, so unless you saw it, you're out of luck. I mean it was almost worth seeing just for the fact that it gave me some appreciation for every other "bad" film I've seen over my lifetime. And for every film I see in the future that I can't stand, I will think to myself, well, at least it wasn't bad as the Second String.

For a made for TV movie I thought that it was a great popcorn movie - don't expect anything to be very accurate and don't expect any award winners in this bunch but I do recommend this for a TV type version somewhat like "The Replacements". Look for cameos from real NFL players & officials.