The Program
1993VOTE NOW
| Buena Vista Pictures | Release Date: September 24, 1993 |
Starring:
Abraham Benrubi, Craig Sheffer, Duane Davis, Halle Berry, J.C. Quinn, James Caan, Joey Lauren Adams, Jon Pennell, Kristy Swanson, Omar Epps
Summary:
Several players from different backgrounds try to cope with the pressures of playing football at a major university. Each deals with the pressure differently, some turn to drinking, others to drugs, and some to studying.
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With convincing in-your-face footage, The Program is certain to be a crowd pleaser for fans who like their football action raw. Some of the roughest action is off the field. [25 Sept 1993, p.E1]
The Program tries to travel light and heavy, and the combination of noggin-banging action and deep-think doesn’t gel. Latham, who has previously bestowed upon us the ersatz pop reportage of “Urban Cowboy” and “Perfect,” doesn’t tunnel very deep into the world of college athletics. What he and Ward come up with is fairly standard stuff that seems derived mostly from old movies.
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Exciting in its big game scenes but excessively dreary in the undercoached dramatics, the seasonal offering will score some quick points at the boxoffice and then fade quickly. [24 Sept 1993]
The Program starts in a fourth-down situation by being a sports movie with virtually no one for whom the audience can root — a major drawback, no matter how hackneyed those “Rocky”-ized finishes have become. Instead, Ward and co-writer Aaron Latham seek to indict big-time college football through a collection of cliches (money-doling boosters, steroid abuse, academic negligence , shady recruiting practices) and still want us to care about whether these players and coaches win the big game.
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Only Omar Epps ("Juice") locates substance in his role as the freshman underachiever who must fight for his starting position, but even he's in service to the uninspired "Program." If someone wanted to make a good, exciting, serious film about the ups and downs of college football, why didn't they just make a documentary about the Huskies? [24 Sept 1983, p.D19]
The stupendously stupid The Program purports to detail one season in the life of the football team of Eastern State University as it struggles for a college bowl berth, but the players must overcome such inflated melodramatic claptrap it's a miracle they ever make it onto the field at all. [27 Sept 1993, p.C6]
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