Varsity Blues

In the small Texas town of West Canaan, high school football is the centre of life. The Coyotes, coached for decades by the demanding Bud Kilmer, are chasing another district title when their star quarterback, Lance Harbor, is injured and lost for the rest of the season. His replacement is Jonathan Moxon, a second-string player who is more interested in his academic future than in becoming a local hero. Mox reluctantly takes charge of the team and quickly clashes with Kilmer, whose harsh methods and win-at-all-costs attitude have gone unquestioned for years. Their conflict builds toward a decisive game.

Brian Robbins directed the film, the second in the run of features he made between Good Burger in 1997 and A Thousand Words in 2012, and he produced it with Michael Tollin from a screenplay by W. Peter Iliff. James Van Der Beek plays Mox, with Jon Voight as Kilmer, Amy Smart as Jules Harbor, Paul Walker as Lance Harbor, Scott Caan as Charlie Tweeder and Ron Lester as Billy Bob. The cast runs to 36 credited performers.

Released in January 1999, the film runs 106 minutes and mixes comedy, drama and romance. On IMDb it holds a rating of 6.2 from 484 votes, while the critics' score stands at 5.2 from 58 reviews, a gap that suggests audiences responded to it more warmly than reviewers did.