Second String

Well intended and interesting, especially for football fans. The Buffalo Bill's offensive starters are side lined by food poisoning. It is now up to the bench warmers to take the team to the play offs. A glory hound coach(Jon Voight)is not thrilled with his replacement quarterback(Gil Bellows)a former NFL star relegated to selling life insurance. Bellows not only has his former coach to contend with, but also an egotistical free agent quarterback(George Eades). Bellows takes the bench jockeys and meshes them into a contending team. Supporting cast:Richard T. Jones, Lamont Johnson,Teri Polo and Evan Dexter Parke. Very entertaining trick plays keeps this daydream between the lines. This is fun to watch.

I thought the movie wasn't too bad, but George's part was too small. His character was a jerk, but it is nice to see that he can play parts other than the studly nice guy! Gil Bellows was good, also. I haven't seen him too much since Ally.

The nice thing about this down-to-earth-hosed-over-qb-wins-the-big-one film is that your wife doesn't walk into the room just as a very foul word comes pouring out of the tv set. In fact, she'll enjoy it with you because there are no drugs, outrageous sex, or make-me-sick-and-shudder bone crunching neck snapping hits ala "Any Given Sunday" happening here. Jon Voight starts off as the despicable coach one can't help but detest (pompous control freak), but he then surprises you by confessing his shortcomings to the miracle game winning 4th string qb he cut from a previous team, realizing that loose cannon (improvising) qbs CAN win games, ala Johnny Unitas, Fran Tarkenton, and Doug Flutie. It is not deep, but definitely predictable, and is still a watchable, easy going, low-paid-guys-with-heart-DO-win, kind of dvd rental. This NOT Ben Hur! A good rainy day at home or drivein (good luck) film. Don't think so hard. Relax.

For a made for TV movie I thought that it was a great popcorn movie - don't expect anything to be very accurate and don't expect any award winners in this bunch but I do recommend this for a TV type version somewhat like "The Replacements". Look for cameos from real NFL players & officials.

We just got "Second String" on video today, and I always the sucker for underdog movies, and after reading the synopsis on the box, decided to check it out. I was rather impressed by this small release (we only got two copies in). Now, I too, got the whole "Replacements-wannabe" vibe that several of the other reviewers may have had. However, I really got into this one a lot more. I thought it had a much better, and more importantly, believable story to it than the "Replacements" did. I thought Voight did a much better job than Hackman ever did as the old coach. Bellows was great as the QB, and since his 5-year stint on TV, its great to see he's making a comeback. I particularly liked when Bellows helped out his teammates with their physical and mental aspects of their game. While other movies have done this several times over, "Second String" doesn't have that corny feeling that is left over for the viewer to digest. Instead, it adds a little humor into it. I chuckled a few times as the players were counting up how much their running-back would pay up for the Superbowl party everytime he dropped the football. If you manage to find this treasure somewhere in the back of our store and are trying to avoid some of the more recent blockbusters that have been released, try giving it a chance. I'm sure you'll be quite impressed.