Jocks

"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.

There's a little gem of an eighties film collecting dust in your friendly neighborhood mom and pop video operation that deserves a better fate. Jocks, a 1987 entry into the then-rapidly dying eighties film movement is exactly the way to go out.

The film epitomizes the 80s-college-boys-looking-for-kicks genre; it's unapologetically formulaic, crude, misogynistic, and campy. It features slovenly, under-achieving protagonists, all-too-dastardly villains, a road trip to Vegas, blasphemy, and of course, that staple of all 80's flicks staples: tits. And lots of them.

The lean, mean, air-tight, joke-a-page script is bolstered by one of the most eclectic casts ever assembled. What other movie out there can boast names like Christopher Lee (the guy IS Dracula, okay?) and the TRUE John Shaft himself Richard Roundtree?! You'll also see familiar faces like Stoney Jackson--jheri curls and all--whooping it up on camera to great effect. Don Gibb as the maniacal Ripper is in top form, giving a tour de force performance that nearly surpasses his masterful turns as Ogre in "Revenge of the Nerds", and Ray Jackson in the martial arts watershed "Bloodsport."

If that isn't enough to sell you on Jocks, you've got a young Tom Shadyac hamming it up deliciously as one of the snide, weasely, trust-fund baby villains before he sold his soul to Satan (or Jim Carrey, anyway) and went on to become Hollywood comedy lenser du jour. "Big Wednesday's" Perry Lang is in this mother too--hey, if Milius cast him, he MUST be that damn good (and guys named Perry just rock!). And last, but certainly not least, is Trinadad Silva, Mexico's greatest export to the U.S. in the role of Chito "The Human Backcourt."

All the shilling in the world can't do this movie justice. Seek Jocks out--it's the truth, and it shall set you free. Until the next time, save us those goddamned aisle seats.

"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.

Spying the luminaries in the Jocks cast roster, it's tempting to imagine that this must be an elite breed of the adolescent coitus comedy promised by its poster artwork. It's not; Christopher Lee and Richard Roundtree reportedly only appeared in this film as a favor to director Steve Carver, and nothing that happens in this movie bears any relation to the image on that selfsame poster. Regardless, Jocks does feature a few time-capsule nuggets which disqualify it from being a complete waste of time. It's just a shame that a filmmaker with such talented friends couldn't find a better use for them than this.

The plot traces the journey of a group of hard-partying misfit tennis players who travel to Las Vegas to compete in a tournament that they must win in order to stop their school from cutting their funding and disbanding the team. Hijinks ensue, they hit some bars and meet some girls, conflicts arise and are surmounted, etc. In that sense, Jocks almost comes across as a real movie. Unfortunately, whether you enjoy tennis or not, it's not a sport that lends itself particularly well to an against-all-odds athletics story, which leaves only the comedy and the genre's lewder elements to supply the bulk of the thrills. Since the quantity of the latter is so paltry here, Jocks doesn't really qualify as a sex comedy, and with only a handful of chuckle-worthy moments to speak of, it barely qualifies as a comedy at all.

On the plus side, the Sin City setting adds immeasurably to the film's appeal, capturing the storied mecca in all of the delightfully divey glory of its bygone years. Viewers who never experienced Vegas before it was transformed into a high-tech adult Disneyland will barely recognize the place as it appears on the screen here. Most of the landmarks that defined the town in the '80s don't even exist anymore, so all of the establishing shots and backgrounds are rich with a nostalgia that's often more engaging than what's actually taking place in the movie.

Most of the characters are presented as one-note archetypes which exclude any real connection to them (Tex says "y'all" and wears a cowboy hat, yuppie Jeff is too square to party and has an ex-fiancée improbably named Muffy, Jheri-curled Andy hits on every girl he meets and is a good dancer, etc). Don Gibb from Revenge Of The Nerds is on hand to stretch his acting chops by essentially playing Ogre again, and much effort is expended trying and failing to make the rebranded "Ripper" this outing's equivalent break-out character. But the gang's centerpiece is the team's star player, "The Kid", who Scott Strader manages to infuse with enough charisma to make him mostly likeable even though he's basically a d-bag. Still, even though the film lingers its focus on this core squad, the supporting cast is far more memorable and enjoyable to watch. Lee and Roundtree would be welcome presences even if they were just reading out of a phone book, veteran pinch-hitter Trinidad Silva steals any scene he appears in, and a young and gorgeous Mariska Hargitay is a joy to behold whenever she's on the screen.

Jocks isn't strictly bottom of the barrel, but with so many promising elements in play that never reach their potential, the film is ultimately interesting for what it could have been rather than for what it actually is. 1980's completists will have a decent time, but for anyone curious why fans of the era still hold movies like this close to their hearts, there is a long list of titles that will provide much better answers than this one does.