‘Blues’ provides varsity-level fun
January 29, 1999
If you go to “Varsity Blues” hoping to see a deep movie that will make you sit in the theater for hours with tears in your eyes, you’re not going to get what you want.
What you will get is great entertainment.
“Varsity Blues” combines comedy, drama, sports and of course, nudity, to make for a great two hours of your time.
James Van Der Beek (“Dawson’s Creek”) and Jon Voight (“Enemy of the State”) work together to create great chemistry during the scenes that make this movie a must-see.
West Canaan, a small town in Texas, is a very religious town. The religion is football, and the god is coach Bud Kilmer (Voight). During his 30 years as a coach, Kilmer has won 22 district championships and two state titles.
Football in this town is so important that every player competes during the games, even if he’s sick or hurt. The coaching staff constantly injects pain killers into the bodies of all the injured players instead of curing their injuries.
Everyone loves coach Kilmer —everyone but his own players.
Other than Kilmer, the most loved person in the small Texas town is the star quarterback of the team, Lance Harbor (Paul Walker).
Then there is the back-up quarterback, Jonathan “Mox” Moxon (Van Der Beek), whose goal in life is to get a scholarship with his grades, not his football skills. Naturally, he is picked on by Kilmer and gets no respect.
When Harbor goes down in a game, Mox is sent in to take over the helm, and to everyone’s surprise, he’s good. So good that he becomes the new star of the town.
With his fame comes billboards, free beer at the convenience store and, of course, the head cheerleader fully equipped with her “whipped-cream bikini.”
Mox has a hard time dealing with the stardom at first, and his girlfriend, Julie Harbor (Amy Smart), has an even harder time.
This sports movie has many of the same stereotypes as all the others, but there are some that aren’t quite the same.
One cool thing you wouldn’t expect in typical sports movies is the relationship between Mox and Harbor. They get along really well, and there is no bitterness when Mox takes over as the quarterback.
When the head cheerleader, Harbor’s girlfriend, throws herself at Mox, he doesn’t accept.
Instead, he talks with her and finds out why she thinks she needs to be with the star of the town. Her goals are like many others: to leave West Canaan and be successful somewhere else.
The different characters in the movie also fit stereotypes. You have the fat kid, the shy kid, the cocky kid, the hot/ditsy blonde and the pretty/intelligent brunette.
The biggest stereotype of all is the ending.
In the end, the fate of the 23rd district championship all comes down to the last big play.
The cool thing about the ending is that it’s not quite as predictable as you might think.
The underlying subtext of the second half of the last game is “winning isn’t everything,” which is a nice change from other sports movies.
One of the more disturbing things in the film is how drinking is so glorified. In every party scene, there is someone who is drinking as much as they possibly can before they vomit.
Whether that happens or not in real life, it sends a horrible message to younger kids and student athletes.
Van Der Beek is just not a very good actor on “Dawson’s Creek,” but I give him credit for this movie — his character and accent are pretty believable.
Voight does an awesome job as the bad guy, although similar to his “Enemy of the State” character. He is very mean, and you really hate him as soon as you see him.
Another cool thing about “Varsity Blues” is all of the new faces on the big screen. Scott Caan plays Tweeder, the cocky receiver, and Ron Lester does a great job as the huge Billy Bob, who deals with his hard life in a heart-grabbing sub-plot.
Director Brian Robbins (“Head of the Class”) does a great job portraying the football games and interweaving the comedy and drama of all of the side stories.
“Varsity Blues” is a very solid movie and the best of the MTV productions to date (which isn’t much to compete with). It brings to the table the harsh reality of how some of those small towns can really be.
The action is good, the comedy is good, and the “whipped-cream bikini” is pretty sweet.
4 stars out of five
Kyle Moss is a freshman in journalism and mass communication from Urbandale.