40 hommes à abattre

Fine sleeper film, very much a reflection of iconoclastic 1970's. Seldom has corruptive nature of professional sports been on more vivid display than here. Pro football (and others?) comes across as supremely exploitative of players, with millionaire owners collecting the reflected glory. Sure, the money is good as is the lure of easy women, while all the adulation is hard to resist, but the cost comes high as battered and bruised Nick Nolte finally figures out. Emphasis throughout is on obvious physical toll, but inner toll proves equally devastating. Team quarterback Mac Davis's sly character and coaching staff's slimy ploys illustrate that inner rot in sometimes subtle fashion.

Davis's understated performance provides memorable glimpse of intelligent man trapped by own weaknesses. Also one of Nick Nolte's most natural performances in both a brilliant and unorthodox career. His Phil Elliot may not be as clever as Davis, but the love of the game is truer, helping him finally see through the clouds of hype. But where oh where was director Kotcheff when beleaguered non-actress Dale Haddon so clearly needed help. Her one and only expression, paralyzed fear, almost brings down the entire film. Was the casting of this ex-Playboy playmate Hugh Hefner's price for assistance with the production?

Thanks Peter Gent for the gutsy expose' and Frank Yablans for bringing it to the screen intact. (After all those Monday evenings on TV, who could ever think of Tom Landry, Don Meredith or straight-laced Roger Staubach the same way again.) (Then too, fans might check out 1949's "Easy Living", a less caustic but also revealing film on the earlier days of pro football.) All in all, the screenplay of North Dallas is one of the best from the period -- humorous, savvy, and richly ironic -- the final boardroom scene arguably among the most compelling of any on sports. It's also one of the best arguments for getting athletics out of all those cathedrals of cult worship and back into neighborhood sandlots where they belong.

Phil Elliott (Nick Nolte) is a worn out wide receiver for the North Dallas Bulls professional football team in the 70s. It's crazy parties, drugs, sex, and alcohol. Seth Maxwell (Mac Davis) is the popular quarterback. Jo Bob Priddy (Bo Svenson) is a dumb wild lineman. Phil meets Charlotte Caulder (Dayle Haddon) at a party but she's not happy to be there. He rescues her from Jo Bob with a lot of help from Seth. Coach Strother thinks Phil isn't serious enough. Team executive Emmett Hunter (Dabney Coleman) is dating Joanne Rodney but Phil is actually sleeping with her. Johnson (Charles Durning) is the assistant coach. Phil is constantly threatened with the CFL. His body is all worn out and the trainer gives him 'B12' shots. Somebody mysterious is after him.

Based on the novel by Cowboys wide receiver Peter Gent, this has the feel of authenticity. It's not quite a spoof with few outright laughs. Nick Nolte is terrific as the weary player. The story is a bit scattered. It could be even darker and more intense.

'ND40' is my favorite of all the sports movies I've seen. It's both a dark and funny look at professional football, succeeding on both levels, with special emphasis put on the way the pro machinery chews up players and spits them out. There's no doubt who the fictional North Dallas Bulls are supposed to correspond to in real life, and the Dallas Cowboys were none too happy with either the book or the movie. For the rest of us it is first-class entertainment.

The movie abounds with great performances. Nick Nolte is superb as the aging wide receiver, weary in spirit and broken of body. His independence and declining skills are threatening his usefulness to the team. G.D. Spradlin gives one of his usual excellent performances playing the team's amoral head coach. It's the type of role he seems almost to have a patent on.

Some actors in this movie, I suspect, are doing the best work of their careers. Mac Davis plays the fun-loving quarterback who is serious about keeping his position both with the team and the ladies, and knows all the tricks, whether it's before, during, or after the game. Steve Forrest is the millionaire owner who wants nothing in the world more than a Super Bowl championship team. And Bo Svenson and former pro player John Matuszak are a couple of linemen who play by the same rules on the field and off.

It's a complex movie with so much going on in some scenes (just like a football game) that it deserves to be seen more than once. One small quibble: the big game was obviously not filmed before an audience. That doesn't detract too much from the overall picture, but a viewer is aware of it.

The opening shot of Ted Kotcheff's North Dallas Forty is a tense and memorable one. It shows the aging and exhausted Phil Elliot (Nick Nolte), passed out in his bed and awoken by a blaring alarm clock. Elliot is slow to get up, every move being a slow one that clearly causes a searing amount of pain. He lumbers to the kitchen to get a beer before stumbling to soak in a bathtub. Punctuating this scene are brief little clips from last night's football game, where Elliot was met with several rough, polarizing blows to every part of his body. Interrupting this scene's quiet, almost meditative atmosphere are Elliot's loudmouth friends, clearly intoxicated, who want to go out and cause a ruckus with their shotguns.

What we see in the first few minutes of North Dallas Forty are what we never see in sports - the morning after the game. The physical pain rather than the heated press conferences or celebratory events in the locker. Because we see the lead character in such a vulnerable, often powerless light despite being a very good football player is why North Dallas Forty is so skilled on its feet as a film. It explores where other films would dim their focus. It fully embraces and boldly depicts in element where other screenwriters' knees would buckle under the weight and pressure of the story, especially for the time. Written by a trio of thoughtful and thoroughly ambitious people - Peter Gent, Kotcheff, and Frank Yablans - the film manages to be less entertaining and sensational, like a typical sports film, and more heartbreaking and an often immersing watch.

We set our sights on Elliot, who is becoming greatly dissatisfied with the way the NFL operates (his team is the fictional North Dallas Bulls, which mirror the Dallas Cowboys, FYI). He loathes the way managers and coaches treat their players like cattle, constantly emphasizing their flaws and not their advantages, and justifying their ungrateful, smug comments on poor performance as methods of tough-love. Elliot knows the organization is out to make money and injuries, long-term trauma, and player wellbeing are the least of their concerns. Through Elliot's dissatisfaction, however, he becomes heavily dependent on painkillers, alcohol, and other pills of sorts to keep his mind right. Just before a big game that determines the Bulls' playoff fate, Elliot's leg, which is experiencing hellish pain, is given a shot of a mysterious substance. What was it? What are its effects? Why is it being used? Who cares, "the whole thing's numb," Elliot states.

The film is held together not only by the competence of its writer but by Nolte's tremendous talents as a character actor and performing. He articulates with a touch of sensitivity and years of craft the agony and despair many aging athletes likely experience. For instance, consider Super Bowl XLVIII, which took place yesterday and ended with the Seattle Seahawks winning 43 - 8 over the two-point favorite Denver Broncos, led by Quarterback Peyton Manning, who is already thirty-seven years old with years of professional experience under his belt. I wouldn't want to feel what that man has felt waking up, especially now, nearing forty with the albatross of having numerous neck surgeries conducted. Watching the Super Bowl last night, I could only imagine how he not just him but many of those players wake up with severe pain in their bodies - pain that will likely carry over to their older years and maybe even cripple them as time goes on. All for a game that will be out of the immediate mindset of even the most heartened-fans in no more than two weeks or so.

On a final note, the promotional poster/home video release images for North Dallas Forty are criminally misleading ones, showing two football players, one dousing himself with water, the other hoisting his helmet while they both lounge in two cowboy boots with two woman grappling to get at them on both sides of the boots. The image at hand denotes a fun sort of rabble-rousing, Animal House-style entertainment which is completely absent from the film. This is not the film you will see, and the marketing campaign has shamefully misrepresented the film to consumers if their sole-exposure to the film is by looking at the film's promotional poster or home video cover.

Starring: Nick Nolte, Mac Davis, and Charles Durning. Directed by: Ted Kotcheff.

Seen this movie a few times on TV and it is a superb football film. Nick Nolte is excellent as the gruff and rough guy with lots of problems on and off the football field. Being in the 70's makes it even better and more realistic. Made in a time when men where men and sports meant more than money, a lot more. Sex, booze, knocking heads and blood & tears is what make these players happy! Good, fun all round film with great thought put into the story especially when entering Nolte's problems with team management/owners. As we all know deep rifts and problems occur between sports players and club owners but we never get to really know the truth and what goes on in the boardroom and player meetings. This film gives us a little make look at what could or should I say happens! I enjoyed this film very much,love the music, great characters and a good story. A winner all around.