BLUE CHIPS
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1995 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): **
BLUE CHIPS is the classic morality tale of the basically good character selling his soul to the devil when he gets down on his luck. In this case, the good guy is the college basketball coach played by Nick Nolte and the devil is the head of the alumni association played by J. T. Walsh. There is a throwaway roll of the coach's ex-wife played by Mary McDonnell who was once so wonderful in DANCES WITH WOLVES and GRAND CANYON. There are lots of basketball players in it, all about the size of small skyscrapers, who are either corrupt or stupid with the exception of the Shaquille O'Neal character.
Easily the best part of this movie is the ending. Wrapping up a morality play is tricky - this one does a really nice job of it. It also has a neat epilog that makes you think, incorrectly, for a few minutes, that maybe this was all a true story after all.
The movie was directed by William Friedkin. Friedkin did the highly imaginative and innovative FRENCH CONNECTION as well as TO LIVE AND DIE IN LA. I loved both of these shows. They are both full of energy and intelligence. There is little visible intelligence in any of the actors or characters in BLUE CHIPS however.
The story runs 1:47 and the time passes quickly. The problem with BLUE CHIPS is that watching it is like eating a pastry that has been whipped so that it is all air. You ate it, but there was nothing there. It is a very homogenized movie that never offends, yet never seems to be for real either. It gets a PG-13 rating for the typical bad language you hear in any locker room. Well, it does insult religion, but most Hollywood movies feel that is mandatory these days, so no surprise. There are a lot of good sports movies that have been made. For basketball, go rent HOOSIERS rather than see this one. I give the movie **, and do not recommend it.
**** = One of the top few films of this or any year. A must see film. *** = Excellent show. Look for it. ** = Average movie. Kind of enjoyable. * = Poor show. Don't waste your money. 0 = One of the worst films of this or any year. Totally unbearable.
REVIEW WRITTEN ON: February 22, 1994
Opinions expressed are mine and not meant to reflect my employer's.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews