MOVIE INFORMATION

With 10 as a must-see, Jack gives this film a: Stars: James Van Der Beek and Jon Voight Director: Brian Robbins Rated: R, with profanity, nudity and sex Length: 106 minutes

ROCHESTERCRITIQUE

Having seen this film, how would you rate it? 10 5 9 4 8 3 7 2 6 1

By Jack Garner
Democrat and Chronicle

(Jan. 15, 1998) -- "Football and sex, that's all these guys care about," bemoans a high school girl in West Texas. "Well, at least I like sex."

That's the world of Varsity Blues, an uneven but impassioned adolescent drama that combines the raunchy football irreverence of North Dallas Forty, the high-school hijinks of Fast Times at Ridgemont High and the earnest teen philosophizing of The Breakfast Club.

James Van Der Beek, the hot young star of TV's Dawson Creek, is Jonathan Moxon, a second-string quarterback for the West Canaan Coyotes. "Mox" plays football because that's what young men are supposed to do in West Texas and because his father played football there before him.

But Jon's also the smartest guy in the school. He's more proud of getting an academic scholarship to Brown than of anything he's ever done on the football field, and he knows his future lies far from West Canaan.

Jon's irreverence riles his hard-nosed veteran coach, Bud Kilmer (Jon Voight). But it doesn't matter much until the team's first-string quarterback is injured and Jon is thrust in the spotlight.

That's when Jon and his obsessed coach butt heads. And it's also when the school's sexiest girl (and head cheerleader) drops her allegiance to the injured QB and tries to seduce the new one.

Thus the standard teen formula is in place: Youthful rebellion against authority, spiced with juvenile laughs and raging hormones.

Van Der Beek and Voight elevate the project with believable performances. Van Der Beek looks at home on the football field; his blond TV locks are dyed black. And he reveals his character's insecurities as well as a growing disillusionment with the inflexible, brow-beating coach.

With a convincing Texas accent, Voight projects the razor-sharp intensity of an obsessive coach who defines himself by the success of his football team. Failure isn't an option. Anyone who's ever had an inflexible, self-serving coach, teacher or boss will recognize the type: It's his way or the highway.

Too bad the film lacks the courage of its convictions. Though its central theme is the kids rebelling against the win-at-all-costs coach, the script still strains to fulfill the defining sports-movie cliche: winning the big game.

And Brian Robbins' direction is sometimes as cluttered as the screenplay. The filmmakers obviously want Varsity Blues to be all things to all people.

Still, Robbins gets strong performances from his young cast. He also captures the craziness of high school football in small-town Texas, where proud communities celebrate star quarterbacks with billboards, rambunctious jocks are granted immunity by local cops, and 30,000 people jam bleachers for championship games.