Varsity Blues (1999)

SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

'Varsity Blues' is a fantastic movie! It really gets you thinking about who is really the protagonist and who is really the antagonist. Sad ending though...really installs sadness for the coach at the end as well as the realisation that he is not the bad guy.

2/1/14. For someone doesn't watch sports of any kind I always end up watching all the movies about sports. And, if they are done well, I end up loving them to death, like this one. What an excellent look at the American Religion of Sports! It really shows how disillusioned men stuck in their own lives live through the successes and failures of their sons, especially on the playing field. Such men are worse than stage mothers. Maybe they should have a term like "Sports Fathers." You know what I mean. Voight was excellent as the ultimate bullying coach, and Van Der Beek as the high school senior who is a decent guy who is wise beyond his years. Do catch this one in which Paul Walker was the cute quarterback who has it all until he gets injured. I loved this movie!

A back-up quarterback (James VanDerBeek) is chosen to lead a Texas football team to victory after the star quarterback (Paul Walker) is injured.I was never a football player. I was not fro ma town that cared about high school football. And I did not particularly care about the football team. Heck, I do not even happen to remember a single person who played on our school's team. So I do not exactly identify with anyone in this movie.And yet, it happens to be pretty good. VanDerBeek does not stray too far from Dawson, which is how we like him best. Paul Walker is here, which is great, since his legacy is pretty much only "Fast and Furious". And Jon Voight is sort of a jerk, which is exactly how I imagine he is in real life.

"Varsity Blues" is much better than you would expect it to be. It is billed terribly as nothing more than MTV's idea of attractive people all acting like stuck-up bimbos and macho jerks. Surprisingly, this is not what you get from this film.Instead you get a great football movie with some very memorable scenes. The shining moment is the halftime showdown between the coach and team. That scene is very nicely done and a great climax to everything that led up to it.Jon Voight certainly helps the film as he is magnificent in his role as the coach. The rest of the cast is not too shabby in their respective roles either.I was split as whether to give this a six or a seven, and I did settle on six, because the script is definitely familiar and some of what happens is unrealistic and cheesy. All in all this is a fun movie that tells a good story and does have some genuine emotion. Definitely worth a watch.