Varsity Blues

This is a Grid Iron (American Football) drama complete with the Hitleresque coach (Jon Voigt at his tyrannical best), the fat try hard gross out, the debutante quarterback and the big game, nail biting finish.

But the sports action is authentic, as far as I know (I'm no Grid Iron Expert). The tackles are suitably violent and the filming is fairly inventive. Grid Iron is after all ideal for this sort of thing because it's so stop start. Sorry about the bias but Aussie Rules is my game.

The sub plots are pretty good and out of the ordinary showing a fairly wry view of the game and of American small town football culture from director Brian Robbins (Good Burger).

The star quarterback (James Van Der Beek of Dawson's Creek fame) wants an academic rather than a sports scholarship to University and his fat mate Billy Bob (Ron Lester, the cook in Good Burger) is remarkably likable. He's a star forward prone to crying, reminiscent of Australian Football's James Hird.

Breaking with tradition, the no 1 Quarterback Lance (Paul Walker) is a nice guy rather than a big mouth idiot and his girlfriend hunts for a replacement boyfriend when he's injured due to insecurity not greed.

The parents are fools in keeping with what teenagers know to be true and along the same lines, teachers tend to be either dumb or hypocritical.

Yes there is a heart hiding not far beneath this sports jock extravaganza but there's still a lot of shouting and drinking.