WormRacer reviews BLUE CHIPS

BLUE CHIPS (1994) - **1/2 out of 5

With the recent retirement of college basketball head coach Bobby Knight, his lasting legacy is already in heavy debate. With 3 National Championships, 11 Big Ten Conference Titles, 28 trips to the NCAA tournament, coaching the last undefeated squad, and the only man with 900 victories, "The General" is one of, argued by some as the, greatest of his profession.

But he is more known though for his temper tantrums. From throwing a chair at a referee during a game to choking out a player of his during a practice to infamously assaulting a cop in Puerto Rico for not opening up a gym for his team, Knight is impervious to anger management like Superman is to bullets.

Knight is the anti-Bill Belichick in that his press conferences were sure entertaining, especially when he lost.

Yet, in a college sports world where low graduation rates and petty corruption are tolerated to acheive championships, Knight apparently while at Army, Indiana University, and Texas Tech, drove most of his players to get their degrees, and never was sanctioned by the NCAA. Like George S. Patton, he has enduring qualities in spite of being such an incredible *beep*

With William Friedkin's BLUE CHIPS, Nick Nolte is practically a Bobby Knight-esque figure, which is interesting since Knight himself makes a cameo in the movie. Anyway, Nolte is a great coach at a struggling program with its first losing season under his regime. Prized recruits are spurring him, and the damn boasters are busting his balls hard this side of Notre Dame alumni.

In other words, what if Knight sold out?

Friedkin, with a script penned by Ron Shelton (BULL DURHAM, COBB), delivers a melodrama of which to give BLUE CHIPS some credit, Nolte knows the "short cuts" he engages in are both morally wrong and illegal, but he's overriden by his ego vain for fleeting glory.

That character is too seasoned and mature to be shocked by corruption in college sports, and Nolte is really good here. His best scenes are when he uses his well-nutured salesmanship and coyness to recruit several players, before having to resort to money, women, and materialism to earn their John Hancocks on their commitment papers.

A nice touch from Friedkin is his casting of real sports personalities from Hall of Famer Bob Cousy to Indiana God Larry Bird to future has-been "Penny" Hardaway, and NBA legend Shaquille O'Neal. This is easily Shaq's best film work, but when his other works are KAZAAM and STEEL, that aint saying much. My favorite is in the underrated Ed O'Neill, who was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers.

What sours CHIPS is its nonsensical finale. While I dug Nolte's blank stare as everyone else is celebrating his team's "return" to dominance, since this is indeed a victory not earned honestly through hard work and dilligence, its everything else that's stupid.

Considering how his players were more than eager to cheat the system for a cut of the pie, why would they suddenly feel as dirty as Nolte does? What's with the press conference when Nolte confesses to O'Neill and the rest of the brutal reporters? Couldn't the head boaster J.T. Walsh have sued Nolte for slander?

And what's with that ending where Nolte helps some random kids on a playground the fundamentals of the game?

It's a feel-good, if seriously unrealistic, ending for a lightweight treatment of a seriously lingering problem. While the idea of Nolte going back to his roots and coaching high school ball is cute, we sports fans know what have actually happened.

This is the age of college basketball when the most marketed "honest" coach in college ball is "Coach K" Mike Krzyzewski of Duke, who has a ridiculously rich contract with Nike. He gets paid a fortune by making his players play in that company's brand of shoeware, and they get squat. Unfair, wouldn't you say?

Interestingly, 8 years after they fired Knight, Indiana University was rocked when Head Coach Kelvin Sampson was busted by the NCAA for making "inappropriate" phone contact with potential recruits.

Forcing him to resign, and now facing penalties that could wreck the program for the immediate future, the Hoosier baseketball program must be wondering if despite his lack of impulse control, Knight may have been the lesser of the evils after all.