I have never seen this movie before, but thanks to Brandon, I have now seen this movie. Because I had never seen this movie before and Brandon said this film is in his top 10 of favorite films, I wasn’t sure what to expect. It was an interesting watch, to say the least.
“Varsity Blues” is the story of the West Canaan Coyotes and their quest to win their coach his 23 championship. That’s the short of it. Much to my surprise, the movie is quite complex, and usually, a movie with so much complexity can feel cluttered and messy. Not this one. It actually did a pretty good job of navigating so much in its one hour and 46 minutes of movie….until we got to the end. We’ll get to that.
Obviously, my favorite character was Jonathan “Mox” Moxon played by James Van Der Beek, who you may remember from Dawson’s Creek. Mox is a brilliant rebel. Unlike Coach Kilmer, played by the the legendary Jon Voight, his goal seemed to be to target the weakness of the other team by not going for the obvious plays with the obvious players. He wanted the entire team to be apart of the play and/or win. Coach Kilmer just wanted the win, by any means necessary. Of course it bothered him that he was, strategically, the better quarterback and he didn’t have a billboard in his yard with his picture on it, but Lance Harbour, played by Paul Walker, is his best friend. So, he can’t be too mad. Now, what came as no surprise to me was the fact that this town and everyone in it is football crazed. Even Mox’s dad, whose goal in life was to be a great football player. Since that didn’t happen for him because he also had Kilmer as a coach and we see how that goes for the boys in this film, the next best thing is for him to be the proud dad of a star quarterback who will go to college, and later, the NFL. The scene between Mox and his dad in the kitchen where he tells him that his dream was self imposed on his was powerful. Mox can play football but he doesn’t need to play football. Billy Bob is a person who needs to play the game because for him, it’s the only thing he’s good at, despite the downside of his passion.
Now, Tweeder got on my nerves. According to my Googles, this film is categorized as a sports comedy-drama, and I assume the shenanigans of the boys is the comedy part. However, the comedy often felt misplaced. Personally, I feel like this would have been better to just strictly make this a drama. Take out the random Tweeder being a mess moments. You could keep the boys finding out their teacher worked at the strip club. You can keep the failed Mox plays, but Tweeder always threw me off. Later, at the end of the film, when the mutiny happens, Tweeder going along with the others doesn’t feel like something he would do. The film didn’t show me that he was serious about anything really.
Let’s talk about this ending. There is no consequence for Coach Kilmer, and I don’t like that. The film built up to this doping scandal only for the ending to be the kids revolt against him, and he never coaches again. That’s it? The town doesn’t get to know what he put these players through?! He just walks out of the locker room and goes home? I didn’t like it. The film should have done better with that. If he was just a mean coach, I’d accept the ending, but he was doing everything in his power to amass these championships at the expense of the players. And you mean to tell me that he just gets to walk away and never coach again? NO! I don’t agree.
All in all, I didn’t hate the movie. It gave me upscale Lifetime movie vibes. If you told me that this premiered on Hallmark or Lifetime, I’d believe you, but I believe it released in theaters. But it was 1999 so many movies released in theaters then that nowadays would stream now.
What do you remember of this film? Have you seen it? Are y’all like me and have never seen it? Sound off
