Necessary Roughness (film)

Necessary Roughness

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Stan Dragoti
Produced by Howard Koch Jr.
Lis Kern
Mace Neufeld
Robert Rehme
Written by Rick Natkin
David Fuller
Starring Scott Bakula
Héctor Elizondo
Robert Loggia
Harley Jane Kozak
Music by Bill Conti
Cinematography Peter Stein
Edited by Steve Mirkovich
John Wright
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Release dates
 September 27, 1991
Running time
 108 minutes
Language English
Box office $26,255,594 (USA)[1]

Necessary Roughness is a 1991 sports comedy film directed by Stan Dragoti in his final film. The film stars Scott Bakula, Héctor Elizondo, Robert Loggia, and Harley Jane Kozak. Co-stars include Larry Miller, Sinbad, Jason Bateman, Kathy Ireland, Rob Schneider, and Fred Dalton Thompson.

The film touches on an up-and-coming season at the fictional higher learning institution of Texas State University and its football team nicknamed the Fightin' Armadillos.[2] (At the time the film was made, there was no Texas State University, but in 2003, Southwest Texas State University changed its name to Texas State University, nicknamed the Bobcats, which coincidentally was the "season opener" opponent of the fictional Texas State Armadillos). Texas State's predicament—they are forced to start the season with a host of new coaches and players after the previous staff and players were removed after a scandal—is based on the "death penalty" handed out to the Southern Methodist University football team by the NCAA in 1987 for team violations very similar to the ones that the fictional Texas State is accused of.

The film was released in September 1991 and went on to gross over $20 million at the box office. During one scene, when the team takes part in a scrimmage game with a team of convicts, cameos are made by several NFL players. These players included Jerry Rice, Roger Craig, Earl Campbell, Dick Butkus, Ben Davidson, Tony Dorsett, Ed 'Too Tall' Jones, Herschel Walker, Jim Kelly, and Randy White. The film also has some cameo appearances from Chris Berman and Evander Holyfield.

The film was shot at various locations in Texas. Azle, Dallas, Fort Worth, and Denton were the primary locations used for filming. The University of North Texas in Denton was a major location for filming football and college scenes. Texas State's green and white uniforms in the movie are exactly the same colors worn by North Texas.

Plot

The Texas State University Fightin' Armadillos were once one of the most powerful teams in college football. After winning consecutive national championships, massive NCAA violations resulted in the program having to forfeit years' worth of victories. All of the previous players and coaches are banned from returning except Charlie Banks, the only "clean" player, who never got to play despite having "heart".

The new coaching staff, led by Ed "Straight Arrow" Gennero (Elizondo), is forced to build an almost entirely new team with little assistance. No athletic scholarships are available, forcing them to hold tryouts. Along with this, they must worry about Dean Elias (Miller), who wants the team to fail so he can scrap it. The coaches soon have a makeshift team in place.

Due to Dean Elias declaring many prospective players ineligible, only 17 players are allowed on the team—not enough for separate offensive and defensive squads. The Armadillos are thus forced to play ironman football. The team lacks experience and talent in all areas, especially at quarterback, placekicker, and the defensive line. Assistant coach Wally "Rig" Riggendorf (Loggia) finds Paul Blake (Bakula), a 34-year-old high school star who never attended college due to his father's death. Rig convinces him to enroll and become the Armadillos' quarterback.

Blake arrives on campus and catches everyone's attention due to his age, especially Professor Carter (Kozak). Blake then recruits a graduate student teaching assistant named Andre Krimm (Sinbad), who is also enrolled at the school and still has some eligibility remaining. Blake convinces him to join, and he is positioned on the defensive line, where he excelled years earlier. Even with the new members, the team is unable to win. Things get so bad that, at one point during the film, announcer Chuck Neiderman (Schneider) covers his microphone with his hands and screams, "SHIT!!!!" at the top of his lungs.

Carter tells Blake that she knows him from years earlier. Carter's ex-boyfriend was a high school football star, but Blake and his team humiliated him and his team in a championship game. This episode actually caused Carter to become infatuated with Blake. Now, years after the fact, the two begin a romantic relationship which Dean Elias opposes, due to the fact that Blake is a student and Carter is a teacher.

Coach Rig makes one more recruiting move to secure a kicker. He shocks everybody by selecting Lucy Draper (Ireland) from the school's women's soccer team. When she is brought on board, the team has its first taste of success, as Draper kicks a field goal in a driving rainstorm to forge a 3-3 tie with Kansas (in real life, Kansas holds the all-time NCAA Division I-A record for number of tie games with 57[3]). After this game, Blake quits the team after arguments with Gennero and Carter, but convinces himself to come back after a teammate, who is also quitting, inadvertently changes his mind and both come back.

With the coaches and players now on the same page, the team plays their last game of the season against the number one ranked team in the country, the University of Texas Colts, with whom the Armadillos were involved in a barroom brawl earlier in the season. They head into the game as huge underdogs, and without Gennero, who is hospitalized just before the game, leaving Coach Rig in charge. After a horrible first half, they rally in the second half to cut the deficit to one, and Gennero returns to the sideline, having only suffered from indigestion, though he lets Coach Rig call the final play. The team decides to try to win it all with a two-point conversion. They fake a point after attempt and pass for two. Blake scrambles and finally finds Banks in the end zone to win the game.

Characters

The Team

The University

Reception

Necessary Roughness received mixed to negative reviews by critics. The film earned a "Rotten" rating of 32% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 28 reviews. The consensus states: "This likable, goofy football comedy has its moments, but it ultimately adheres too closely to the sports movie playbook to overcome the cliches in the script." (60% or better earns a film a "Fresh" rating). One film summary stated "A bad attempt at making a football version of Major League." Sports Illustrated, in a criticism of sports movies in general, stated that "Kathy Ireland is probably the best thing in this laugh-a-quarter film", while the Los Angeles Times called it "A by-the-numbers, but enjoyable sports comedy".

Roger Ebert wrote a more positive review, giving the film three stars. Ebert stated the film did do a good job of poking fun at some serious problems within college football, such as recruiting superstar players who lack the academic skills to be college undergraduates, colleges mollycoddling athletes through ridiculously easy classes, i.e. "rocks for jocks", and alumni giving payoffs to college players. He further said it was good to see a college being forced to use genuine students for its football team and anticorruption practices which prevent the aforementioned favoritism and big money.[4]

Texas State Irony

One of the teams that Texas State plays in the film is the Southwest Texas State University Bobcats. A few years after the release of the film, Southwest Texas State became Texas State University after an official name change and change of the University's status.[5]

References

  1. ↑ "Necessary Roughness (1991)". Box Office Mojo. 1991-11-12. Retrieved 2012-12-15.
  2. ↑ "Movie/TV helmets". Mghelmets.com. Retrieved 2012-12-15.
  3. ↑ Total Football Stats.com Division I-A All-Time Wins
  4. ↑ "Necessary Roughness :: rogerebert.com :: Reviews". Rogerebert.suntimes.com. Retrieved 2012-12-15.
  5. ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102517/trivia?ref_=tt_trv_trv

External links