Blue Chips

Name: Blue Chips
Director: William Friedkin
Released: 1994

William Friedkin

1994

Synopsis

Pete Bell, a college basketball coach is under a lot of pressure. His team isn't winning and he cannot attract new players. The stars of the future are secretly being paid by boosters. This practice is forbidden in the college game, but Pete is desperate and has pressures from all around.

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Cast

Recommandations

75
Chicago Sun-Times
The movie is told almost entirely from Nolte's point of view, and he makes an immensely likable character right from the top.
75
ReelViews
There's a good dose of reality in this story, even if the script occasionally becomes too preachy. The end sequences especially could have been toned down.
70
The New York Times
Only late in the game do they make an unforgivable mistake. Blue Chips falls apart when the film makers, figuratively speaking, haul their soapbox right onto the court. Most of the time, Blue Chips is too energetic to sound self-righteous.
60
Los Angeles Times
At its best, though, Blue Chips is really about the wiggy, muscle-twitch world of high-pressure college athletics. The movie is best around the edges, when it's jamming and anecdotal and not taking itself so heroically seriously.
58
Entertainment Weekly
The folly of Blue Chips is that the film makes this greased-palm corruption seem an even bigger sin than it is. (It's like a political drama made by someone who is shocked, shocked at the sleaze of campaign financing.)
50
TV Guide Magazine
A good concept fails to become a good movie in this predictable tale of corruption in college basketball, featuring the ubiquitous superstar and corporate pitchman Shaquille O'Neal.
50
Austin Chronicle
The performances of Mary McDonnell as the coach's ex-wife and Alfre Woodard as a ballplayer's ambitious mom raise the dramatic levels to such a degree that you might want to see the movie for their performances alone.
40
Washington Post
If it wasn't for some exciting roundball action, Shaquille O'Neal's hulking-dunking presence and a wonderfully guttural performance from coach Nick Nolte, you'd slither off the bench asleep.