Based on a book by Dan Jenkins that is considered a classic comedy about
football, the film is like a meandering intoxicated sailor on leave who has
no idea where he wants to go. This film is all over the place with the focus
of a hummingbird. From time to time it is quite amusing but much of it feels
flat depending only on the charm of Burt Reynolds to push it forward.
Last night I watched Reynolds in a 1971 appearance on the Dick Cavett show.
It was really weird to watch. Reynolds had just wrapped up Deliverance -
the film that made him a star - but it wasn't released yet and he was in
the middle of filming Fuzz with Raquel Welch. His TV show Dan August had
just been cancelled. He was both self-deprecating about his TV work but kept
saying but I am a movie star now. And he was right. He would flash charm
one moment but he had this aggressive passive hostility towards Cavett that
was really uncomfortable to see. But it reminded me that I have been meaning
to go back and watch a lot of his films that once I thought were beneath
me. So I started here.
The film is sort of a sports version of Jules and Jim without any of the
intelligence. Reynolds and Kris Kristofferson are football players who room
with their old time buddy Jill Clayton. Just friends. Clayton at the time
was on a winning streak with Silver Streak, An Unmarried Woman, Starting
Over, It's My Turn before she would quickly fall off the filmgoer's radar,
but she is very appealing here. As the film progresses and the team gets
into the playoffs first Kristofferson realizes he loves her and then so does
Burt. It is not played for drama or comedy - all very low key. The poster
is fairly misleading - not anything as sexy or juvenile as that. That probably
could have helped.
Now that and the football would have made a good film but director Michael
Ritchie decides to take the film way off course into a long and boring sideline
about a conman pop new age babbling self-help guru. And then he finishes
the film with a scene out of the Keystone cops. Just a few poor decisions.
Best scene in the film is Reynolds getting massage therapy from Lotte Lenya,
who I kept waiting for her to take out brass knuckles and whack him in the
back ala From Russia With Love.
