Okay, here's the deal. When you think of movies with a sports theme, what do you think of? Do you think of the religion of baseball, as seen in Field of Dreams and Bull Durham? Do you think of the violent grace of football as seen in Brian's Song, or even football-as-society from The Longest Yard? How about the glamour of violence, as seen in the hockey movie Slap Shot? Is there anything as pure and determined as a well-played golf shot? Not according to Tin Cup. The poetry of street basketball has never been done like it has in He Got Game and White Men Can't Jump. Even the boredom of bowling can be spoofed as a high-dollar spectator event, courtesy of the hilarious Kingpin.
I offer you a theory: sports can be a fantastic theme for a movie. There are stories to be told everywhere. You can poke fun at them, you can glorify them, and you can even be critical of them. Any angle can work to be entertaining in a sports movie. Michael Jordan can play basketball with Bugs Bunny, for Pete's sake, and it can be entertaining.
Now, let me disprove all that I just said with two words.
Varsity Blues.
Folks, there ain't no way to sugarcoat this. I've been in a movie theatre just outside Death Valley. It was 118 degrees outside. The air conditioning system was broken in this theatre, but the doors had to remain closed if you were going to see the film. Fans had been put up, but all they did was move superheated air around. In the previous show, some little girl had thrown up twice because of the heat, and she had been eating chilidogs and Atomic FireBalls before she got there. The heat baked the smell into all the seats around her, while it also brought out every aroma of stale popcorn, fresh sweat, and God only knows what else.
And, friends, even that miserable stinking theatre didn't reek as bad as this putrid movie does.
If there has to be a plot summary, this is it. The town of New Canaan, Texas, has a high-school football team. It also has more than its fair share of strange people, more than a few of which just happen to be on (you guessed it) the football team. The quarterback (Paul Walker) keeps a billboard in the front yard to display his stats. Humongous Billy Bob (Ron Lester) eats nachos and Velveeta while he drives his truck, and washes them down with pancake syrup. Tweeder (Scott Caan) is so hormonally geared up, he should just wear a ribbon of Trojans over his shoulder. And, the hero of our little drama, our own little Our Town for the Mentally Handicapped, is Mox (yes, people...Mox). Mox (James Van Der Beek) is a player, but he's (heaven forbid...) the smart outsider. He reads while he sits on the bench. He plays only because his father did, and, like he says, football "is a way of life" in this town. Oh, the plot. This miserably dumb group of people has to win games for a maniacal coach named Kilmer. Kilmer, who is basically a rabid dog that somebody shaved and put a whistle in the mouth of, is played by Jon Voight. (Yes. That Jon Voight. Oscar® winner...Midnight Cowboy...Coming Home...Jon Voight.)
Let me start by saying this - I know who to blame here. MTV Films. They got the idea to produce this bag o' barf. MTV once again proves they're only interested in whoring their name as a music icon for the sake of selling soundtrack albums. How can it be possible that the best movie they've even been associated with was Beavis and Butthead Do America? Answer: Mike Judge did the film the way he wanted to. MTV couldn't tell him what to do.
Brian Robbins, the director here, must be a magician of some sort, because he took what might have been a decent idea and made it disappear in a wash of lame jokes, horny teenagers, and excuses to play the selected tunes for the soundtrack. I do imagine at one point that Robbins had shown some talent for making movies, but, between this masterpiece and his other blazing effort, Good Burger, I'd hope he would highly consider a return to some other honorable profession. Brian, I suggest Floor Sweeper in a Chicken Processing Plant. At least it would remind you of your cinematic efforts now and then....
Oh, but let's share the wealth here. Ignore the cast members you've never heard of, because it's highly likely you will never hear of them again. If they do work again, expect HUGE name changes, except for Scott Caan, who will probably ride his daddy Jimmy's last name for another couple of shots. The two you may have heard of, Van Der Beek will undoubtedly get more chances at screen time, as long as he stays on that genetic experiment that blended Ricki Lake's talk show and 90210, Dawson's Creek. He pulls a David Caruso, and he's history. If you don't know who David Caruso is, take it as a point proven.
Should I even load the shotgun for Jon Voight, or should I just let him squirm... Awwww, why not?
Jon, honestly, tell me the truth. Are times that bad for you? You were wonderful in The Rainmaker. You were a treat to watch in Anaconda, regardless of how hammy you were, because the whole role was supposed to be over the top. But what in the name of Jane Fonda were you thinking here? Commercial voiceovers aren't paying you enough, you have to go to The Dark Side and sell your soul for this? I hope you sit back in your easy chair and think about films like Conrack, Coming Home, Midnight Cowboy, or even Enemy of the State, Mission: Impossible, or The Rainmaker. I hope you erase this fatboy A-bomb that dropped in your lap and spend the money quickly. And, for Pete's sake, hire another agent, or script reader, or whatever. Just don't let this happen again, or you'll be painting on PBS before you know it. "Let's add a little tree here.... And a bush lives over here..."
Two things surprise me most, though. The biggest one is how little respect MTV has for their audience. One thing I hear time and time again is how young people hate being treated like they're ignorant. I agree with this fully. Treat anybody like an idiot, they'll act like an idiot. Treat them like intelligent beings, they'll act intelligently. Why offer this complete waste of time, money, and effort to your target audience? MTV used to pride themselves on being the voice of the generation. When exactly did the voice of the generation start sounding like babbling idiots? Even Beavis and Butthead, as sophomoric as it was, held a satirical edge to it. This should be insulting to anyone who's a fan of MTV, that they consider you as a moviegoer, to be willing to accept anything that has their logo on it as gold.
My horror, though, is that it will be a moneymaking film, thus proving exactly what MTV wanted to show. That people will accept anything fed to them, regardless of quality.
The other surprise here is that Robbins did not run toilet paper through his cameras every ten minutes while he was filming this. It is customary to wipe after such an act, is it not?
If you pay to go see Varsity Blues, you deserve to sit through it twice. My honest advice, if you really and truly want to see this movie, is to wait a few weeks. It will, no doubt, be on video before April and on cable before June. But, if you can't wait, just turn to MTV. Catch three of the music videos produced from this movie, and you could probably piece the movie together without wasting two hours of your life. Who knows, you might need those two hours one day to survive, and, dang it, you burned them in a theatre trying hard to find a reason to justify paying seven bucks to see this piece of Texas desert crap.
Image copyright Paramount Pictures.
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dead on arrival