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.

Jocks is a production from those purveyors of good taste, Crown International Pictures. In fairness, these guys were responsible for some good movies but most of them came out in the 70's when they put their hand to trends of the day that seemed to work better for them. By the 80's though it appeared to be low budget comedies all the way, and it would not be uncharitable to describe a lot of these as being 'uneven'. Jocks is an example of one of the cinematic staples of the day - the teen sex comedy. Except, there really isn't all that much sex but there is a lot of...tennis. A college sports coach must get a group of misfits under his charge up to a good enough standard to win a tennis tournament in Las Vegas; needless to say, the city attractions coupled with the underhand machinations of their rivals prove a major distraction for his protégés.

Seemingly this one sat on a shelf for a few years, which kind of makes sense when you see that the date of the tournament was '84, yet the film was released in '86. Presumably it was on account of its low quality, although I have frankly seen worse from Crown from the period, although admittedly not that much worse. The comedy is pretty basic stuff and seems to be based primarily around gags that can be elicited from laughing at stereotypes, to that end we have, amongst others, a wild man (played by the guy who starred alongside Jean-Claude Van Damme in Bloodsport (1988) - to say this fella's acting range appears to have been a bit limited would be something of an understatement), there's also a Mexican and a Prince lookalike transvestite. I did chuckle occasionally although I can't actually now even remember what at. So, it's not totally without humour but it is of a very low-brow standard, i.e. an angry man with a beard hitting tennis balls aggressively, out-dated gay humour, etc. It is enlivened a bit by the introduction of some breasts though - by contrast to the humour, this sort of production value never seems to get old for some reason. The film also is kind of notable for improbably starring Christopher Lee as the college head. I think it seems that like many others such as Al Pacino, Harvey Keitel, flared trousers and beards, the 80's was a barren wasteland of a decade for Lee and so he pitched up in some rubbish, only to return with flying colours later on. In the final analysis, this isn't very good but it's not exactly terrible either - if you are a tennis loving Christopher Lee fan, you are probably the demographic that Crown were aiming for, in which case, batter in.

...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.

"Jocks" is indistinguishable from dozens of 80s teen comedies. Even such names as Christopher Lee (what is he doing here??) and Richard Roundtree can't give it much class. It's tame, it's predictable....but it's not dislikable. I'll give it a low rating (*1/2), but fans of such comedies would rate it higher. Those tennis scenes could've been handled better, though.