Review of North Dallas Forty (1979) by Thomas K — 13 Sep 2014

I've always thought this was my favorite football film. I'm not a football fan, but I really liked the unglamorous portrait of professional football, depicting it as a bunch of pain pill popping, womanizing, drug and alcohol abusing, adolescent man-children.

The film follows pro football player Nick Nolte who's goes through the film in constant pain, which is what seemed to stick with me the most about this film, and develops a relationship with the non-football fan Dayle Haddon, who's quite good and who I don't really remember from anything else.

While the film isn't strong on narrative, which is mainly Nolte's character coming to the realization that the NFL isn't about the game or the players but about money, it does have a great feel for the time and place.

I'm not sure how much connection this has to football today, but taken on it's own, this film seems like a pretty honest portrait of what football must have been like in the 1970s. The film also features a strong supporting cast that includes Charles Durning, Mac Davis, Bo Svenson, John Matuzak, G.

D. Spradlin and Dabney Coleman. Directed by the underrated and underused Ted Kotcheff with a good score by John Scott.