Blue Chips

This movie seems to have a funny and interesting idea from the outlook. Yet this movies never quite takes off in the right direction or any direction. Through the first half of the movie it builds up as a comedy. In the second half it tries to alter itself into an engaging drama.

Personally I had no problem with Shaq and Penny Hardaway in the movie. Nick Nolte with his character fit perfectly. Still the writing was totally unimpressive and horrible except for the one scene with Nick Nolte at the end with his press conference. Everything else in this movie seems to be cliché and would not amuse anyone except for small kids.

The supporting cast other than the three basketball players and Nolte's ex-wife fit perfectly or should I say match the poor and cliché writing of this movie. For example J.T. Walsh was cast as Happy. Happy was in charge or at least had connections that helped Nolte get his top notch recruits with illegal strategies such as buying houses, giving money and buying other luxurious items for the recruits' families. J.T. Walsh seemed very easy to spot as a corrupt and horrible man even though his character is supposed to have a low profile and be behind the scenes. This presents a huge problem for a key character who does seem to be quite believable. He is supposed to be the man doing things under the table instead he is totally visible to the public.

As I said before the writing in this movie does not engage the audience because it doesn't take on its own identity. It is hard to call this a comedy with too few jokes and attempts to amuse the audience and it is hard to call this a drama with the movie trying to be portrayed as a comedy.

This movie could have been easily fixed if there was more work done on the writing and the casting. Blue Chips attempts to show the corruption in college sports but it fails to show the many aspects of it. Such as the corporate sponsors and the pressure an athletic director is under of loosing their job. It does not show the competing colleges vying for the top recruits and most of all it does not show you how such pure and genuine feeling such as playing a sport can be so easily corrupted by the pressure and the need for winning from coaches and colleges to fans and corporate sponsors. This sounds like a lot but could have been very easily included in the movie without having to overextend this into a 2 1/2 hour movie.