A Season on the Brink

Being an avid ESPN watcher, I can't even guess how many previews the network had for "A Season on the Brink"...To be honest I think the producers should have spent more time on the actual program then on all the hype. OK, this movie really seemed to have no middle ground: In the majority of scenes with his current players Bob Knight is just a bully. His language is just atrocious, and plainly it offended me to hear the F-bomb 50+ times in this movie, the show made its point that BK has a "potty-mouth," but enough was enough. Secondly, the other half of the movie tried to pain BK like a total angel. The scenes with his lovable son seemed contrived and way to lovey-dovey. When the older player(guy in wheel-chair) comes back to watch a practice he thanks Bob for saving his life, buying him a home, giving him a foundation....blah blah blah The movie just ended 10 mins ago, so maybe I'm jumping to a quick conclusion...but I think ESPN should stick to what it knows with sports broadcasting and forget its new original films projects

As you can tell from my chosen screen name (a nickname I got on the job), I had a great interest in this film and it paid off. After all the pre-film publicity and trailers, I expected a scene in which disgruntled players and whiny referees chased Coach Knight with torches to the old windmill.

Instead, and having read the book I know this, the film stayed very close to the book and made a real attempt to show both Knight in his rages and tantrums and as a mentor, friend and a loving father. This film gives no quarter to either the pro-Knight or anti-Knight fans. The casting was excellent and the film's action scenes looked like these guys at least hit the local high school gym a few hours per week to get ready.

If I have any complaint with this film, it's that they seemed to try to use basketball footage to connect random episodes from the book. There would be a very moving, intense scene, then a graphic saying something like "Indiana won seven of the next eight games". This is like making a movie about World War II beginning with Hitler's election in Germany, then showing a graphic saying "Germany invaded Poland in 1939 and then conquored France", then cutting to a scene of The Battle of the Bulge.

But other than that, this was a great film, one of the few truly great sports films.

This film clearly is not the greatest one in the history of the world, but it does have one real thing going for it. Brian Dennehy's performance as the General (AKA Bob Knight) is probably the greatest portrayal we will ever see of the character. True, he does not look or sound exactly like Bob Knight, but who else does? Dennehy had a very challenging role in this picture, and while the representation is not exact (he said himself that one can't act exactly like Bob Knight without getting a headache), I can't imagine anyone doing better.

I think that Bob Knight is a character who is best explored in documentary form, and that approach would have worked just fine as a film. As it is, however, we're left with a TV movie that is just slightly above average.

6/10

brian dennehy was much better than expected in his portrayal of knight, although he should have dropped some pounds for the role. there is groundbreaking television use of the f-bomb, and it works wonderfully. the movie starts strong and ends a little abruptly, but overall a six or seven

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.