Our return to daytime recording is less unhinged, yet still leaves lingering concerns, most notably - what are the caveats and dimensions of Sinbad’s scholarship such that he can play football despite being a PhD student actively teaching undergrads?
We are greeted almost immediately by a memorable - if not great - Bill Conti score. This is a 90s movie, and the tunes will not let you forget it. For a second, I thought I was back in Diggstown, but no - we are staying in Texas for more football!
Listeners may recall my comparison of James Van Der Beek to Scott Bakula during our Varsity Blues episode. The comparison doesn’t end there, with Bakula enrolled in a journalism class, nursing some seriously misplaced, adolescent moodiness.
Filmed in Texas, the movie assembles an impressive roster of familiar faces, with (in our opinion) Sinbad and Robert Loggia as the major highlights.
Notably, this is Chris Berman’s first film appearance as an actor, playing himself. He and Andrew Bryniarski both would go on to appear in The Program in 1993. Football Series 2? We’ll see.
Necessary Roughness also invites us back to a time before we knew Rob Schneider as a disconcerting hack. Schneider deploys his SNL copy-guy riff (the same year it debuted on that program) as the Armadillos’ announcer, serving up some of the funniest moments. All the more impressive that he is alone in the booth.
I realize I did not mention this line on the episode, and it absolutely killed me. This is Coach Gennero, played half-asleep by Hector Elizondo, remarking on the age of their new quarterback - 34 - to his assistant coach:
“I hope he gets younger as he gets closer.”
There are a lot of fun and funny moments in this movie, but there are equally as many set-ups to jokes that never really pay off.
You know what else we never really find out? Why the hell anyone else wants to play football!
Bakula gets to return to his glory days, and he uses that desperate longing to rope Sinbad into playing. Beyond that - what the hell are these other people doing? There are a couple extras in the try-out scene that look like they had dreams of rushing yards, but what about ROTC guy and karate guy? What’s Jason Bateman up to?
Another moment that gave us pause: Evander Holyfield, maybe the strangest or least expected cameo among the prison team, remarking that he thinks he “swallowed a finger” as he boards the prison bus to leave campus. The infamous ear-biting assault on Evander Holyfield by Mike Tyson occured six years after this movie was released - how spooky is that?
I could go on with the strange choices but that is what the podcast is for, and at the end of the day, we were still entertained. The movie could shave off about 10-15 minutes easily - and what movie couldn’t? This is still a fun nostalgia trip for fans of Major League, The Replacements, and either Longest Yard. Throw on your denim shirt and denim jacket and/or your nylon coach’s windbreaker and have a Lone Star - for yourself, and for quarterback Paul Blake, and for all our forgotten dreams.
For your enjoyment, the full pep talk by Robert Loggia during halftime - in Phil’s opinion, the Mt. Everest of sports movie pep talks. And no, he’s not kidding.
