Review of Varsity Blues (1999) by Jason D — 07 May 2010

Varsity Blues captures everything I hated growing up: high school football, small-town idiots, narrow-mindedness, and jock stereotypes all encased in a small universe with very little culture or sense of the outside world.

In it, a group of long-time friends, namely 2nd-string QB James Van Der Beek whose a virtual unknown thanks to being in the shadow of star QB and hometown hero Paul Walker, as well as other players Scott Caan, Ron Lester, and Eliel Swinton.

Thanks to an overbearing, manacle coach (Jon Voight, in a very convincing role), the group feels unnecessarily pressured to do well, but mounting problems lead to Walker's football career ending abruptly due to a severe injury, leading to Van Der Beek to fill his shoes.

Much to everyone's surprise, Van Der Beek is an even better QB and gets swept up in the new-found fame and glory, which begins to take him away from his more logical path of ditching that redneck town for higher learning and culture.

The end result isn't necessarily a bad film. It's engaging thanks to some fun football action, a few genuine moments of drama, and some actual laughs. Ok, ok...the Ali Larter Sundae scene was pretty hot too, not to mention the teacher/stripper with the beautiful fake titties.

Those were nice scenes as well. It's just hard to focus when it's centered around characters (albeit very convincingly played by the actors) I grew up around and despised so much in life. Good job from director Brian Robbins, which is rare considering the usual shite films he usually makes (Meet Dave, The Perfect Score, etc).

Not bad.