Jocks

Hunky Los Angeles college tennis player Scott Strader (as "The Kid") likes to party more than practice, so straight-laced pal Perry Lang (as Jeff Andrews) is worried about their championship possibilities. When coach Richard Roundtree (as Chip Williams) takes the team to Las Vegas, the nightlife threatens to ruin the tennis team's chance to bring home L.A. College's first trophy ever… Steve Carver's "Jocks" are an undeniably likable group, but their story is filled with dead humor. Don't expect any more than ONE good topless "girls gone wild" moment.

*** Jocks (1987) Steve Carver ~ Scott Strader, Perry Lang, Richard Roundtree

"Jocks" was filmed in 1984 and subsequently spent a few years on the shelf before getting released. Watching it, it's easy to guess why that happened. First, the "humor" in this movie isn't all that funny - it resorts to tired gags about people driving falling-apart cars and transvestites. Also, there are surprisingly a number of moments when the movie doesn't even seem to be trying to be funny - it's about half serious most of the time, in fact. The characters are uninteresting for the most part, save for Donald Gibb's character, which seems to have been lifted from another, more humorous and energetic movie. The tennis sequences are dull, relying on the same two camera angles over and over. As for the "R" rated material, most people I think will be disappointed - for the first hour, there is NOTHING beyond a "G" rating other than utterances of the words "t*ts" and "s*hit". Then there is some wet t-shirt and topless stuff, but none of it is displayed for very long. The only audience for this movie might be for die-hard Christopher Lee fans, since this is one of his rare appearances in a comedy - or should I say so-called comedy.

...from those trash purveyors at Crown International Pictures, who seemed to flood cinema screens in the 1980s with a never-ending wave of low budget high school comedies that were anything but funny. JOCKS is about a team of tennis misfits who must learn skill and humility to beat their opponents, and is notably only for featuring a better supporting cast than is normal for the genre.

Sadly, JOCKS is a film saddled with some truly poor writing when it comes to the central characters, reducing them to mere unlikeable (and unsympathetic) caricatures. Scott Strader's self-centred jerk is a particularly miserable creation so perhaps JERKS would have been a more fitting title. Out of the youthful leads, only Mariska Hargitay - Mickey's daughter - makes an impression due to her natural beauty, alongside Donald Gibbs as wildman Ripper, a role he would play over and over again throughout his career, most notably in Van Damme's BLOODSPORT.

Aside from the usual lame jokes and gratuitous nudity, JOCKS offers a trio of supporting roles from familiar faces. Most notable of these is Christopher Lee, miscast as the school president, although he only gets a few scenes (and the most notable of these lampoons his role in the musketeers films). Then we get a sweaty R. G. Armstrong (PREDATOR) as the coach, and the inimitable Richard Roundtree, wasted in another 'wise elder' type role, imparting knowledge to the kids. In any case, it's a mess of a film, and one worth skipping unless you're a sucker for this sort of stuff. Director Steve Carter previously helmed the enjoyable Chuck Norris action flick AN EYE FOR AN EYE, also starring Lee, and apparently called in a favour to get him to show up here.

Unless they can win a championship, LA College's tennis team will lose their scholarships, and their coach (Richard Roundtree) will be out of a job. At their next competition in Las Vegas, the players pull out all the stops to win, employing a variety of underhanded techniques in an effort to undermine their opponents' confidence, but find that the team from arch rivals Dallas Tech are just as devious in their methods.

An important factor of many decent teen comedies is a likable protagonist; Jocks, from director Steve Carver, not only features a thoroughly obnoxious lead character, a self obsessed douche by the name of The Kid (Scott Strader), but his friends are just as irritating, making the film a thoroughly charmless affair made all the worse by a lack of decent jokes, some really dull sporting scenes, and the pitiful sight of Christopher Lee slumming it as a strict college president (just one of the actor's many career low points).

The presence of the lovely Mariska Hargitay (as Dallas Tech babe Nicole, who inexplicably takes a shine to The Kid) makes matters a little easier to bear, as do the film's few moments of gratuitous female nudity, but as a whole, Jocks scores very few points.

The President (Sir Christopher Lee) of L.A. College issues an ultimatum to his athletic director Beetlebom (R.G. Armstrong): produce a championship team, or else. Beetlebom agrees to give tennis coach Chip Williams (Richard "Shaft" Roundtree) a chance, otherwise the whole tennis program is kaput. Naturally, Chips' tennis team is full of life-of-the-party type misfits.

Provided one can tolerate the flagrant stereotypes among the characters and the very 80s trappings of the presentation, "Jocks" offers a mildly engaging rehash of that time-honored "misfits make good" formula. And make no mistake, it IS formulaic, with roadblocks put in our heroes' path, but never much doubt that they'll prove to be stand up guys. Since this is also a Crown International movie, rest assured that it's reasonably exploitative, with a generous dose of breast shots.

The main hero is a guy known only as "The Kid" (Scott Strader), and his assorted teammates include a Mexican (Trinidad Silva), a Prince lookalike (Stoney Jackson), an enormous bearded goon (Don Gibb, a.k.a. Ogre from "Revenge of the Nerds"), a worry wart (Perry Lang), and a gambling expert (Adam Mills). Their nemeses include the smarmy duo Tony (Christopher Murphy) and Chris (Tom Shadyac, future director of things like "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective", "The Nutty Professor" with Eddie Murphy, and "Liar Liar"). And adding eye candy are appealing Katherine Kelly Lang as Julie and future TV star Mariska Hargitay (in one of her earliest roles). The actors are likable enough, but the ones who come off the best are the veterans like Lee (it's odd, but nice to see him in this sort of setting) and Armstrong (you keep wanting to snatch the toupee off his head).

Adequate location shooting in Las Vegas, a peppy rock soundtrack, and some decent action on the tennis court make this an acceptable diversion for 91 minutes.

Six out of 10.