Captivating movie !

Absolutely brilliant

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

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.

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.

The old "Grid Iron" has long been a favourite topic of Film Makers. First the College Game, which truly hit the heights in the 'Roaring 20's" was the subject of fans passion, young boys admiration and the Gamblers fascination. Tobe a College Boy on the 'Varsity' was surely a close approximation of Heaven on Earth. But what about the Pros, Professional Football, that is? Wouldn't a talented College, Simon Pure Athlete like to try his hand at this Professional Game. The American Professional Football Association had been formed and soon thereafter, the name changed to The National Football League, and it had its problems.The early pro football 'clubs' bore a greater resemblance to what we would today call, "Semi-Pro" teams. That is generally, the membership paid for equipment and game uniforms. Travel was usually done by auto and wasn't too far as a rule. The typical entrant was usually from Small Town, USA, not Bigville. So we saw less the likes of the Chicago Cardinal sand more like Decatur(Illinois) Staleys, the Providence(Rhode Island)Steamrollers and the Canton(Ohio)Bulldogs.The first and only truly recognizable "star" was Jim Thorpe, who was elected the figurehead President of the League right at the start. Then the Chicago Bears signed Harold "Red" Grange, old number 77 from the University of Illinois. The Bears went on a Barnstorming Tour following that season, introducing a sports crazy public to the "Galloping Ghost" and the Pro Game.Other College Stars and "All Americans" followed, their names alone guaranteeing boosts at Box Office numbers. Guys like Elmer Leyden, Jim Crowley, Don Miller and Harry Stuhldreyer, collectively known as Coach Knute Rockne's Four Horsemen of Notre Dame, all did hitches in the Pro Ranks, before going into Coching and Business.So the Pro FootnallWorld that our story is one of maturity, having gone through years of ups and downs in the attendance figures. By this time, the Mid-1960's, things were generally pretty good financially, to say he least. Franchises in the NFL, which had reportedly originally cost $100.00, now hovered in the Million$, as teams played their schedules in increasingly modern facilities.The story/screenplay of NORTH DALLAS FORTY(1979) is by Pertr Gent, former Pro Footballer with the Dallas Cowboys and the New York Giants. He was a graduate of Michigan State University, where his main Sport had been Basketball.In the screenplay a "DRAGNET" Style policy of "The Names have been changed to protect the Innocent.", and to prevent any civil litigation. All the characters' names are fictitious, of course. And as for the names of the various teams, we have ones like 'North Dallas Bulls' and 'Chicago Maurauders', but when a game is portrayed in the film, we all know who'w who in the real life counterpart.The whole drama unfolds in the space of a little better than about 2 weeks time. The main character, Phil Elliot, a veteran Wide Receiver,finds himself as being on the spot when a team mate receiver is injured and his(Elliot's)playing time will be greatly increased. We spend an awful lot of time following him around town, at practice, servicing a girlfriend of one of the owning family Hunter Brothers.He also meet up with a very lovely Lady at a team party, and strikes up a romance, the real thing, I mean! We are shown the life of a pro athlete, how they want for nothing, but crave everything intangible, like Love, Security, Respect and Home.The relationships of players as "friends" and the intricate construction of the Pro Sports Team "Office Politics" are given a thoroughly complete, through the microscope examination.It is in the end, that we and our story's protagonist are suddenly made aware of what we really are to the public and the Ownership.The point of view is of Author Peter Gent, who did go through several seasons on the rosters of both Dallas and N.Y.Giants. He was always known as a sort of "Football Non-Conformist", a sort of 'flake', if you will. But, we all know that there are 3 sides to every story. Your side, My side and the True Side! We'll take Mr. Gent's word for it as far as it goes. This is the way he saw it and we can't dispute anything first hand. Besides, were you there, Schultz? And the typical , that f

NORTH DALLAS FORTY is often billed as one of the all-time great sports films (and the best to do with football). But there's a reason our mothers told us not to believe everything we hear.The biggest problem with NORTH DALLAS FORTY is that it's not really what it wants to be. The film was promoted as a sort of expose on the pressure athletes face to perform not only when it hurts, but when it's dislocated or broken; and to use illegal drugs to numb the pain. That's an interesting angle, to be sure, but it's just one of many explored here. So much of NORTH DALLAS FORTY feels like a run-of-the-mill pigskin picture that's been done a dozen times since. And the dramatic and comedic elements the writers injected mix about as well as oil and water.To be fair, NORTH DALLAS FORTY was made at a time when the issue of drugs in sport was much more taboo. Three decades later, we all pretty much accept what's going on behind closed dressing room doors. Don't get me wrong. NORTH DALLAS FORTY is a decent film with decent performances, with a beat-up Nick Nolte and holier-than-thou Mac Davis leading the way. Yet there's nothing overly spectacular about it.