I was about ready to log off on this movie by the end of the first half hour or so. A teen movie that takes it characters and values seriously. The coach of a high school football team, Craig Nelson, in western Pennsylvania must lead the team to victory to land a better job. Tom Cruise, the star of the team, needs to finish high school with an unblemished record in order to win a football scholarship to college and leave Ampipe. (That's the name of the industrial Appalachian town -- Ampipe, as in American Pipe and Steel Company.) Oh, there are all sorts of conflicts. The coach has no tolerance for failure. He calls it quitting. And he thinks in nominal scales -- you're either with the team or against it. And he really believes this crap. And Tom Cruise has an attitude problem. He loses his cool when he's angry and shouts impulsively when he should be keeping his mouth shut.
Then there is Cruise's girl, Lea Thompson, a tiny thing who loves Cruise as much as he loves her. But they have a problem too. She believes that if Cruise leaves high school for a distant college, while she is still a junior with another year to go, she'll lose him to someone else. Further, she's envious of Cruise's chances of getting a football scholarship while she, a musician, has little such hope.
I said the coach believes the stuff he shouts to the team in the locker room and he really does. He gives pep talks about quitters being losers and we're all in this together. The context of these scenes seems to encourage the audience to accept this adolescent nonsense. And when Cruise's father is in a bar and someone spits in his face that, "Your son cost us the game!", and the old man pops the impudent natterer in the nose, we are clearly meant to cheer the petty violence.
But then, the second half of the movie, while still groveling in corn, gets a little more interesting. Some sympathy is extended to the coach -- I won't bother describing it in detail -- when his house is trashed. Cruise who was peripheral to the incident apologizes but the coach has him pegged as a quitter and fires him from the team, causing a blemish to appear on Cruise's heretofore spotless record, and jeopardizing his chances of being awarded the scholarship that will free him from the hellish community he's part of.
And what a dreary place it is. The drizzly weather, the shabby wooden tenements, the Gothic woods, the dripping hills, hover over the whole movie like a leaden cloud. You can practically smell the dismal rooms and trailers. See "Slap Shot" or "Coal Miner's Daughter" for other examples. Give me the studio-built, fairy-tale Appalachia of Howard Hawks' "Sergeant York" any day.
The performances are neither outstandingly bad or unusually good. Lea Thompson is appealing enough with her girlish voice. Tom Cruise still has that piping high-schoolish voice and spends a good deal of time standing around open mouthed. Craig Nelson has the kind of presence that ought to lend itself to high morality or terpitude but the default position of his features is a simple frown. He's never able to get past that frown.
Enough. Everything in it is predictable, including the happy ending. The coach is offered a job at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo and offers Cruise a scholarship there. I don't know how a newly hired football coach can offer anybody a scholarship, but there it is. The old fixeroo is in. You know, I'm not sure whether the coach was hired at Cal Tech or Cal Poly. Can't remember exactly. I hope it was Cal Poly because the campus is situated in such a pretty area -- the coast of central California -- and they have a marvelously comprehensive library. I managed to locate a book of mine in the card catalogue. Yes, a nice place.
Then there is Cruise's girl, Lea Thompson, a tiny thing who loves Cruise as much as he loves her. But they have a problem too. She believes that if Cruise leaves high school for a distant college, while she is still a junior with another year to go, she'll lose him to someone else. Further, she's envious of Cruise's chances of getting a football scholarship while she, a musician, has little such hope.
I said the coach believes the stuff he shouts to the team in the locker room and he really does. He gives pep talks about quitters being losers and we're all in this together. The context of these scenes seems to encourage the audience to accept this adolescent nonsense. And when Cruise's father is in a bar and someone spits in his face that, "Your son cost us the game!", and the old man pops the impudent natterer in the nose, we are clearly meant to cheer the petty violence.
But then, the second half of the movie, while still groveling in corn, gets a little more interesting. Some sympathy is extended to the coach -- I won't bother describing it in detail -- when his house is trashed. Cruise who was peripheral to the incident apologizes but the coach has him pegged as a quitter and fires him from the team, causing a blemish to appear on Cruise's heretofore spotless record, and jeopardizing his chances of being awarded the scholarship that will free him from the hellish community he's part of.
And what a dreary place it is. The drizzly weather, the shabby wooden tenements, the Gothic woods, the dripping hills, hover over the whole movie like a leaden cloud. You can practically smell the dismal rooms and trailers. See "Slap Shot" or "Coal Miner's Daughter" for other examples. Give me the studio-built, fairy-tale Appalachia of Howard Hawks' "Sergeant York" any day.
The performances are neither outstandingly bad or unusually good. Lea Thompson is appealing enough with her girlish voice. Tom Cruise still has that piping high-schoolish voice and spends a good deal of time standing around open mouthed. Craig Nelson has the kind of presence that ought to lend itself to high morality or terpitude but the default position of his features is a simple frown. He's never able to get past that frown.
Enough. Everything in it is predictable, including the happy ending. The coach is offered a job at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo and offers Cruise a scholarship there. I don't know how a newly hired football coach can offer anybody a scholarship, but there it is. The old fixeroo is in. You know, I'm not sure whether the coach was hired at Cal Tech or Cal Poly. Can't remember exactly. I hope it was Cal Poly because the campus is situated in such a pretty area -- the coast of central California -- and they have a marvelously comprehensive library. I managed to locate a book of mine in the card catalogue. Yes, a nice place.