Blue Chips (1994)

Director:

William Friedkin

Writer (WGA):

Ron Shelton (written by)

Release Date:

18 February 1994 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Sport

Plot:

A college basketball coach is forced to break the rules in order to get the players he needs to stay competitive.

Plot Keywords:

College | Basketball | Rural | Single Parent | Gratuities

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Nick Nolte	...	Pete Bell
Mary McDonnell	...	Jenny Bell
J.T. Walsh	...	Happy
Ed O'Neill	...	Ed
Alfre Woodard	...	Lavada McRae
Bob Cousy	...	Vic
Shaquille O'Neal	...	Neon
Anfernee 'Penny' Hardaway	...	Butch McRae
Matt Nover	...	Ricky Roe
Cylk Cozart	...	Slick
Anthony C. Hall	...	Tony
Kevin Benton	...	Jack
Bill Cross	...	Freddie
Marques Johnson	...	Mel
Robert Wuhl	...	Marty

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for language.

Runtime:

108 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby SR

Certification:

Singapore:PG | Australia:M | South Korea:12 | Argentina:13 | Peru:14 | Spain:T | UK:15 (video premiere) | USA:PG-13 | Iceland:L

Filming Locations:

Frankfort Senior High School - 1 S. Maish Road, Frankfort, Indiana, USA

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

For the filming of Pete's team versus Bobby Knight's, the filmmakers had the teams play two games, from which they took bits and pieces to assemble what is seen in the film. Unlike the screen version, Knight's team prevailed in both games.

Goofs:

Factual errors: After the losing season at the start of the movie, Coach Bell travels to see Butch play a high school game. The college season outlasts the high school season by weeks to months. There is no chance that Butch's team is playing a home game after the college's regular season is over. There is a small chance that the coach could have gone to a State Tournament game to see Butch play, but even those tournaments are over before the college season ends. In addition, most high school players have signed a letter of intent early in their senior year making a recruiting trip in the early spring unrealistic. It is understandable from a pacing perspective why the film was shot this way. The coach has another losing season and decides not to let it happen again and goes after the Blue Chip players to be better next year. In the real world, he would have been making the recruiting trips (or his assistant coaches would have) much earlier, during the season and not after it.

Quotes:

Pete Bell: Dwayne, you can get through college half-assed. Richard, you can get through LIFE half-assed. But I'll guarantee you boys one thing: sure as hell, I'll guarantee you this: you cannot *win* half-assed!

Movie Connections:

Featured in "The Directors: The Films of William Friedkin (#2.13)" (????)

Most Underrated Sports Movie Ever!

I'm not a big sports movie guy, so I went into this not really expecting much other than killing 90 some minutes. I loved it! To see the struggle of a school and coach as they attempt to create a legit winning team in an environment of corruption was interesting. Then when they join that corruption it becomes exciting, you just know it's gonna blowup some time. Nick Nolte carries this film throughout it's entirety, and amazingly the real life players do a great job of acting and the rest of the cast is perfect. I love how they took real players and coaches and brought them into this film, it fits perfectly. The last 35 minutes of this film is brilliant. I've seen many people here talk of how bad this film is, I wonder if they just don't care about sports that much like myself, or have some underlying bias about admitting the corruption exists and always has in much of college sports. I don't care for sports! But I loved this film. The ratings this film gets on here really ticks me off, what is it, a 5.5 star average? I've learned one thing on here and other review sites, if you let others judge for you, you'll miss a lot of good movies.