Review of Varsity Blues (1999) by Tonee O — 14 Nov 2009

I think I like the idea of Varsity Blues more than I like the movie itself. Living in Northwest Arkansas all my life, it was not unusual for high school football to often be the talk of the town. It was never quite as horrifically pivotal to everybody's survival in the way that it is portrayed within this film, but it was still often the number one topic of conversation.

The movie positions its star, John Moxon (James Van Der Beek), as a normal sort of guy - he reads books instead of football plays! - who just happens to be really good at football and gets swept up in the sport after the regular quarterback gets seriously injured. His intentions are initially to combat the sadistic coach Kilmer (Jon Voight), but as the adulation of the entire town begins to be thrown upon his mortal shoulders, he begins slipping away from his girlfriend and into the clutches of evil football.

All of this is an interesting concept, which I do think could have been turned into a pretty great movie. But it skips past chilling and goes straight into a sort of Cruel Intentions-esque game of manipulation and treachery, one that occasionally crosses the line into absurdity, thinking that the hook is enough to save it. There are several things I could point to: the religion-hopping brother, the over-the-top reproductive lesson in health class, the take-off-the-glasses-and-let-down-the-hair hot teacher who.. SPOILER ALERT.. ends up doing just that.

And then our hero isn't much of a hero at all. When he needs to stop the clock during a football game, he chunks the ball at the head of an innocent person on the sidelines. He rationalizes his decisions as he gets led further and further into the football cult he's been dropped into. But it's not done in a believable or organic way - he literally asks himself aloud, "I've always been good. What's the upside to being good?" It's lines like that which take subtlety out of the equation entirely.

So here's my final word on the subject: I liked the movie, but I didn't like much of anything that happened in it. I enjoyed the premise, but all of the characters were obnoxious. I feel strongly that, were the movie dialed back a lot, it could have worked a lot better. Varsity Blues is like the Scream of football movies. It would work a lot better if it weren't trying so hard to be "clever".