Customer Reviews

North Dallas Forty

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This movie really blew the lid off a lot of the shenanigans that go on in professional sports. I'm sure that many were upset with the portrayal of athletes as drunken, pill popping idiots but that was probably a reality back then. This movie precedes Any Given Sunday by two decades and still hits harder in its revelation of football's seamy side. Nick Nolte is superb as Phil Elliott. Mac Davis also gives a fine performance. The scenes of athletes being shot up with painkillers to play is intense. The laissez faire attitude of coaches and team owners is probably more realistic than the NFL would care to admit. I love the scene when Nolte gets suspended for smoking marijuana and his response is that the team is injecting harder drugs into him each Sunday just so he can play. That kind of mirrors the insanity and stupidity of the NFL drug testing policies even today. Football is an American institution but indeed there is a dark side. This movie does a fine job of pointing that out.

I remember this coming out when I was a kid. I also remember I wasn't allowed to see it other than in its butchered form on Network Television. Now I know why.

This is a fantastic film. One thing that struck me is that for a football film, there is very little actual football in it. Which is the reason for the title of my review. This film is ABOUT football... not a football film. It's about the players in a time when the league was still young and, I dare say, corrupted by the use of pain killers and alochol. It was the hey dey of the Cowboys, the Raiders and the Steelers and football players were treated like Rock Stars.

It's the film "Any Given Sunday" wanted to be. But failed miserably at even being a cheap imitation.

If you loved 1970's films and 1970's football, this film is a must see.

NORTH DALLAS FORTY delivers first-rate entertainment. Football fans will note stinging parodies of a few famous NFL players/coaches. Among quality performances from Nick Nolte, Mac Davis, Charles Durning and the late John Matuszak, actor Bo Svenson stands out. Svenson adds depth to what could have been a cartoonish role of an immature, stupid muscle-head, and it is unfortunate that I have not seen him in anything else this good. The film's poster makes NORTH DALLAS FORTY look as though it is a pro football version of ANIMAL HOUSE. Sure, NORTH DALLAS FORTY is funny at times, but the film also takes on the abuses in big league sports and management's selective enforcement of the rules. Sports journalists, let alone other sports films, ought to address those issues as boldly.

Nick Nolte&Mac Davis give great performances in this film.this film pre-dates all of the maddness that has happened in the NFL since it's release.drugs,sex,coaches,etc..this film is one of the best sports movies.the real life Dallas Cowboys finally caught up with the film in the mid-90's.

This is an unsparing, unsentimental look at pro football in which the players are alternately brutes, and slaves to management. Coaches shamelessly manipulate the players and then discard them the moment injury strikes; the players are drugged up in order to coax them onto the field, while at the same time the unpopular players are ensnared by drug charges in order to trap them at contract renegotiation time.

"North Dallas Forty" is probably one of my favorite sports movies, and definitely my favorite football movie. That's because of its defiant outsider approach -- "Ball Four", the baseball book that made Peter Gent's football novel possible, only ever wound up a lame sitcom; "North Dallas Forty" goes all the way. Even though the movie is based on the Dallas Cowboys of the 1960s, the instantly dated 1970s' filmmaking technique remains timeless (even if it's from the same director who made "Weekend at Bernie's", which is timeless for very different reasons).

Part of the movie's continuing appeal remains its cast. Nick Nolte is a brilliant lead, as the rebellious but honest-to-a-fault North Dallas wide receiver Phil Elliott. Phil tells it like it is and sees management for what they are, but doesn't realize he's being cheated out of his career until the third or fourth time he's been double-crossed by owners, coaches and friends alike.

Playing a riff on Dandy Don Meredith, country singer/songwriter Mac Davis plays sly quarterback Seth Maxwell. The rest of the football team is filled out with several ex-NFL players. John Matuszak's second acting career was launched by this movie, and Bo Svenson's football career should have been launched by this movie. The coaches, Charles Durning (as a cliche-spouting offensive coordinator) and the great G.D. Spradlin (playing a thinly veiled Tom Landry) both dominate their scenes. And yes, that's Dabney Coleman as an oil man and part owner who delivers one of the movie's best lines ("Do you speak Canadian?").

Dayle Haddon looks great as Phil's love interest, but otherwise gets overshadowed by the rest of the cast. She seems so disinterested in Phil throughout the movie that I was convinced their relationship wouldn't make it another week after the story ended.

Kotcheff directs his football scenes with an interesting approach that could never be duplicated today: there's not a single wide shot of a packed house, not a single closeup of a spectator in North Dallas face paint and a Maxwell jersey. Gone are the excesses of modern TV football coverage, and the only product endorsement I could spot was for xylocaine. Most of the early football action is shown in mute flashbacks, and the climactic game against Chicago is not joined until after the two-minute warning. Even with such minimal football, however, Kotcheff's action is so muddy, bloody and cruel that you can imagine the final game sequence was cued up in L.T.'s VCR the fateful Monday night he tangled with Joe Theismann's leg.

Always worth watching every late January, "North Dallas Forty" is one of those films you hope is never going to be remade, because the original has everything you need in a football movie.

Even though it is a little dated by the football equipment and clothes of the era, the message of Pro football is resounded honestly and comically. The whole cast is awesome scene to scene, and do a great job keeping you laughing.

NORTH DALLAS FORTY is not just a sports film, it's an indictment of corporate America that was the forerunner of the "Greed is good" films of the 1980's. One of the nicest acting surprises of 1979 was Mac Davis as Seth Maxwell, the consumate huckster who fails in his quest to save his friend, Phil Elliott from his own pre determined gridiron destiny. As Elliott, Nick Nolte, gives 1 of his 3 best performances and he and Davis play perfectly off each other. This film is a winner. All that was missing was NFL Films "Voice of God" John Facenda, with the play by play.

Taken from Pete Gent's book about life with the Dallas Cowboys of the Don Meredith era, this movie (a quarter century later) is still the only film that deals with much of the reality of professional football in America. Other movies have been funnier ("The Longest Yard"), others have used more Hollywood fantasy to make their point ("Any Given Sunday"), but none other than George Plimpton's "Paper Lion" have any accuracy.

Not only is "North Dallas Forty" accurate, it is accurate in the extreme. It shows players taking shots in their joints in order to play in the game. It shows the way management treats players like meat, like yesterday's newspaper. It shows the way players eschew teamwork to look out for themselves, their statistics and their salaries. In a very Hollywood way, this movie uses big stars but makes a valid point about pro football in a way no film ever has.

I went to Pete Gent's school, Michigan State University, where I lived in an athletic or "jock" dorm. I knew football players at MSU including a couple that went on to become pros and all-pro in the NFL. I'll never forget the day I showed up for my test in freshman Natural Science when I had a little chat with the two football players in my class, one of whom went on to become an all-American and all-pro in the NFL and blocked for O.J. Simpson.

"We were at the professor's house last night going over the test," one of them told me moments before the test was passed out. That was one of my first real-life lessons in how college athletes are different from the rest of us. When the "North Dallas Forty" version of college football is made, maybe that scene will be included.

Until then, you have this film to help you understand how the NFL really works and what it's employees go through during their careers, which average 4.3 years.

This film made in 1978 is a behind the scenes look at the world of professional football that remains sadly pertinent to the NFL today making the meshing of the business world and athletes a sport of its own.

Nick Nolte plays an aging and aching receiver who has the heart to play the game of football but lacks the ability to have his mind controlled by the people who run the game. Nolte is excellent as he winches and moans throughout the film waiting for his chance to play but being continuously undermined by a corrupt coaching staff and the owners of his team. Mack Davis plays the handsome Texan quarterback who cares little about the mind control and more about having a good time. Charles Durning is the Maalox drinking assistant coach who adds some comedic relief to the story, along with Bo Svenson who plays a psychotic linebacker with nothing but "kill" in his heart. Dabney Coleman and Steve Forest are the evil business brothers who treat their players like machines tossing them out whenever necessary without a thought. Finally G.D. Spradlin does an excellent job as the head coach without much of a soul but with plenty of insight.

The story shows a world filled with parties, adultery, corruption and drugs as it engulfs the football players searching to fulfill their dreams of stardom and self-importance. One hit can end it all and one badly placed step can change their world. In order to succeed and have a long career in the game drugs are used to keep the aging body going. While on the outside a toke of marijuana ends the game (shades of Ricky Williams here!). Somehow it just doesn't make any sense. The film is a great classic if you love football but the actual game scenes are high school football at best. And politics......aren't they everywhere? Watch for the stirring speech from an athlete's heart delivered by the late great John Matuszak.

Nick Nolte does a supurb job as a veteran wide receiver playing for a top team in the NFL during the late 60's or early 70's. The fact that he is an individual in a team sport makes this story even more exciting. Although he has come to the time in his career when medical science and tons of pain killers are a necessary daily diet in order to lace up the old cleets one more time for the team, he does not shirk his responsibilities or take the easy road when it comes to performing his job. Mack Davis turns in a creditable acting job as Seth the veteran QB of the team that has his way even when he is wrong. Now if you think that this movie is all about football you will miss the true meaning and emotion of the entire event. In the midst of a savage and hostile working environment a person can still be true to self amidst the greedy management side of a very tough sport. I hope that this whets your appetite to get this movie. There are memorable moments in and out of the locker room. The tell all book written by Peter Gent was more than an eye opener back a few decades ago and this rendition of the book does it justice in every way. Once you start watching this movie you will not want to turn it off! If you are a fan of football reality, you will want this movie. Oh, by the way, the author Peter Gent played professional football for the Dallas Cowboys back in the 60's I believe. That is what makes this movie so creditable and Peter does not hold back anything. Enjoy!! By the way I think that this movie is rated "R" for brief nudity, language, and violence.