(reviewed on ppv, Monday, August 9th, 1999)
‘Varsity Blues’- an MTV produced teenage football romp- is so unrealistic I half expected the climax of the film to involve terrorists taking over the football field and the President of the United States to be held hostage in the endzone.
James Van Der Beek (Dawson in ‘Dawson’s Creek’) stars as Moxie, a senior, second string quarterback on the West Canin football team in Texas, where football is life. The players are bigger than NFL stars, here. They get to have parties without cops interfering, they get free beer, they receive access to strip clubs, and hot blondes practically beg for sex.
Their life is a party…or is it?
‘Varsity Blues’ majorily is a fun filled teenage drinking/sexual romp along the lines of ‘Porky’s’ or ‘Dazed & Confused’, but just to give it story they have added a dark underbelly. On the surface everything is great for these jocks, but on the inside, life sucks.
The best part of the film is Jon Voight’s fiery performance as the football team coach who has his own bronze statue in front of the football field. He is the film’s villain. He forces hurt players to continue, routinely shoots them up with joy juice just so they continue to win, and desperately does everything his way just so he can win that coveted state title.
Of course the kids rebel at halftime of THE BIG GAME and…do I even have to give it away?
The film is watchable for one reason: it’s entertaining. Anything MTV has anything to do with (they’ve produced) usually is at least, on a certain level, watchable. Forget how unrealistic the entire film is. Forget how Der Beek is the perfect teen: how he can not fuck a nude blonde bombshell in a whipped cream bikini begging for his cock, how his girlfriend hates his guts because he’s the new star quarterback, but for some unknown reason she miraculously loves him because he wins a football game, and forget how he talks a fat assed disgusting caricature like Billy-Bob out of doing something really devlish with a shotgun.
For teenagers, they’ll look at this film as a reason to have casual sex with anyone and everyone, drink beer because it’s hip and in the movies it’s what the cool kids do, and throughout all of this, a happy ending awaits you.
Keep dreaming, MTV-ites. ** (out of ****)
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