Varsity Blues (1999)

★★★½
Varsity Blues rode a wave of predictable kiddie/teen sports movies that arrived in abundance during the ‘90s, and I think it unfairly gets lumped into that group. Reviews at the time labeled it as another entry in that genre, but look closely and you’ll see that Varsity Blues injected plenty of unorthodox and surprising plot points that not only differentiated it from the likes of Little Giants, but showed that with the right cast and crew, a movie with a traditional and derivative core can rise above them. All that is needed is to recognize that a movie can be predictable and use a little imagination to take the plot into unexpected places.

James Van Der Beek, a ‘90s heartthrob thanks to his starring role in Dawson’s Creek, stars as Jon “Mox” Moxon, the backup quarterback for the West Canaan High School football team. He sits on the bench while star quarterback Lance Harbor (Paul Walker) takes the snaps and leads the team to victory after victory. After a lapse by offensive tackle Billy Bob (Ron Lester), Harbor is injured and Mox is thrown into the starting role. Head coach Bud Kilmer (Jon Voight) and many of the spectators have little confidence in Mox, but their fears are negated when Mox plays with precision and leads the team to victory.

A division championship is on the line, but the movie also focuses on the daily grind at West Canaan High School and how Mox deals with his newfound fame. He is dating Lance’s sister Julie (Amy Smart) but also has attention from Lance’s girlfriend Darcy (Ali Larter), who gravitates to star quarterbacks in an effort find escape from this small Texas town. At one point in the film, Darcy invites Mox to her house and surprises him—and the audience—with a unique use for whipped cream in a scene that should be legendary and probably is in some circles. Mox must also deal with pressure at home. He wants to get into Brown University, but his father, who also played for Coach Kilmer, is more concerned with his on-field performance than his efforts to get into a good school.

What I have described so far sounds like the foundation for an entertaining but forgettable teen sports movie. Indeed, the world has long moved on from Varsity Blues. However, its accomplishments should not be dismissed. It worked when it was released, and it still works upon re-examination. Let’s start with Lance Harbor. His injury forces him out for the season. His playing career could very well be over. In the hospital, he is bitter about his situation. Meanwhile, Mox experiences the success and glory that would have been Lance’s. In a predicable sports movie, Lance would be angry with Mox for stealing his spotlight. A lesser script might have featured a confrontation between the two quarterbacks. That’s what I expected when I first saw this movie, but it is not what I got. After his initial distress over his situation, Lance snaps out of it and is very supportive of Mox, going so far as to confront Coach Kilmer about injecting a pain killer into another injured player—the same pain killer that Lance took that allowed him to play through injuries.

Like all sports movies, there’s a buildup to the big game at the end. The West Canaan team is presumably the underdog without its star quarterback. Again, the movie shakes things up by not even revealing how far this team goes. By that, I mean there is a game at the end—the final game of the regular season—but the movie resolves everything it needs to resolve with its characters and sees no need to find out how deep this team progresses in the playoffs. Mox has his scholarship to Brown and further cements his relationship with Julie. Darcy seems at peace with herself. Lance, in another surprise, even coaches the team once Coach Kilmer bows out due to a player coup.

This movie is stacked with young talent. The cast reads like a who’s who of actors who emerged in the late ‘90s and still work today. Van Der Beek went on to appear in The Rules of Attraction and continues to work steadily. Amy Smart, fresh off her short appearance in Starship Troopers, would go on to appear in a number of movies since. Larter would appear later in 1999, in Final Destination. Scott Caan plays wide receiver Charlie Tweeder and would go on to appear in the Ocean's 11 heist series. Paul Walker would see the most success in the Fast and the Furious movies before his death in a car accident in 2013. Jon Voigt provides the veteran presence as the hard-nosed Coach Kilmer, a maniacal dictator who runs his team with an iron fist and isn’t above petty behavior, like denying his black wide receiver Wendell (Eliel Swinton) a chance for touchdown receptions.

Director Brian Robbins, whose career has been thoroughly undistinguished overall (he directed the awful Ready to Rumble), somehow poured all his creative energies into this movie and left nothing for the future. As such, Varsity Blues is quite an accomplishment. He and his screenwriters must have realized that this kind of movie could be a trap, so they made every effort to avoid the usual pratfalls of predictable sports movies and come away with something worth seeing. Anyone who says Varsity Blues doesn’t separate itself from its roots wasn’t looking closely enough.

© 2018 Silver Screen Reviews