A Season on the Brink

Absorbing and highly interesting portrait of how Bobby Knight (Brian Dennehy) handled the numerous on-going dilemmas while coaching the Indiana Hoosiers during the tumultous 1985-86 season. I don't know anyone else who could handle playing "The General" besides Dennehy. Playing Bob Knight isn't exactly like playing a character from a William Shakespeare story. The atmosphere that is displayed here during any of the games, practices, or off the court isn't only real, but very bleak and unforgiving. The movie is based on a novel (of the same title) written by John Feinstein. I give the people at ESPN who decided to back the movie a lot of credit. A captivating and emotional tour-de-force.

I can't believe ESPN took so much time to promote this film, for it to turn out the way it did. Every time I turned on ESPN, there was a commercial or an on-screen ad for this movie, and it never lived up to its hype. It seemed like nothing more than an excuse to say the f-word on TV. Watching the edited version on ESPN-2 was even more ridiculous, if not hilarious, with some of Knight/Dennehy's "multiple-expletive" phrases being nothing but quick bleeps. (What was supposed to be the f-word three times in succession, was done as bleep-bleep-bleep). If I were Brian Dennehy, I would not include this on his resume.

A Season on the Brink, the first movie made by ESPN ain't gonna win any awards, but its an entertaining looks at the most wildly charismatic and controversial coach in NCAA basketball history, Bobby Knight.

You can tell when you watch the movie that it didn't quite have the budget of your normal movie - the basketball scenes are kinda cheesy lookin and when they try to weave it in with actual game footage it looks a little ridiculous.

But the movie is worth watching just for Brian Dennehy, who looks and talks exactly like Bobby Knight. The movie surely takes some dramatic license, it has to, and the cast arouns Dennehy is nothing to write home about - but Dennehy sparkles and the movie is certainly worth watching for any college basketball or any sports fan.

ESPN attempts to give us a look at the inside wheeling and dealings of the charismatic coach Bobby Knight(Brian Dennehy)whipping an Indiana Hoosier team into shape to compete in the 1985-86 basketball season. Knight is the vocal point of the project and there are some good scenes where real game footage is used. Interest is moderate and it is odd watching a candy coated, but nonetheless brash vision of the ballsy coach. Dennehy seems at ease with the role and some good performances are turned in by Al Thompson, James Lafferty, Michael James Johnson and Yorick Park as Indiana team members. Not as impressive as a three pointer, but worth a trip to the free throw line.

This film was a highly anticipated one for me, partly due to all of the hype created by ESPN and because it was based on the real life character Bobby Knight. The movie had it's own style to it, with clips of actual Hoosier footage inserted into the acting, which in a way resembled the style of Forrest Gump. This film, in my opinion, is a "watch-one-time" movie because most of the good parts were given away by the commercials and it basically displayed what most of us sports buffs knew about Bob Knight anyways.

Plus: Profane language added realism and brought a new perspective to the reality of the Knight regime

Minus: It was a fairly uninteresting film, unless you are a devout

Hoosier fan



In sum, good work ESPN, don't quit your day job, but try to make a couple more good films.