If You Didn't Hate The Dallas Cowboys Before..

eti55

..there's a good chance you would after seeing North Dallas Forty, a stinging indictment of the NFL in general and the Tex Schramm/Tom Landry era Dallas Cowboys in particular, the way their management callously and ruthlessly used and manipulated their players. Frank Deford of Sports Illustrated pointed out that what was promoted as a raunchy football comedy is, in reality, far from it (except for a few isolated moments). Although fiction, said fiction is supposedly a VERY thin disguise of actual people and events..an expose of the dark side of pro football.

As Phil Elliott, the protagonist in the story (based on the author, former Dallas Cowboys receiver Peter Gent), explains late in the film to his girlfriend Charlotte (Dayle Haddon), he puts up with being used and playing the owner's game all for that high he gets when catching the football. All Elliott and the rest of the players want to do is play football, but they have to do it according to the rules made up by the owners and the league, and deal with the harsh reality that the game they love is, in fact, a business. Team management doesn't give a damn about their players. They don't even see them as people..only cogs in a machine. And troublemakers are not tolerated. As Elliott points out toward the end of the film, gesturing to team management, "We're not the team! THEY'RE the team! We're the equipment!"

Even the raunchy comedy that was promoted for North Dallas Forty was decidedly dark. There's one sequence where two players are fighting over a woman at a party, then one player gives the other a kiss and then all three start dancing. Elliott (to Charlotte, attempting to explain their behavior), "See, alcohol and fear makes for a good combination." Charlotte (incredulous) "What are they afraid of?" Elliott (dead serious) "Falling on their asses in Chicago."

The movie also is the first to really slam home just how brutal the game of pro football really is (and especially was back then). The opening sequence sets everything up. Elliott wakes up the morning after a game in pain all over his body. He can barely get up out of bed, can barely walk, he downs a handful of painkillers (chased down with a beer), fires up a joint and sits in his tub smoking weed, trying to get even some of the edge off the pain from all those hits he's taken. And as you see Elliott forcing his way out of bed and making his way to the bathroom to get in the tub, you see him wincing in pain in various places, each time cutting to a flashback of the play where he got that particular injury. The editing in that sequence is masterful, and makes it all the more gut wrenching, as you see the sheer violence and brutality of the game close up.

The performances are great top to bottom, a lot of them from actual pro football players (John Matuszak in particular). Nick Nolte turns in a great performance as Elliott (he deserved an Oscar nomination for his all-too-real portrayal of a broken athlete in pain in the opening scene alone..a scene with no dialogue). Mac Davis is terrific as the fun loving quarterback Don Meredith..ummm, I mean Seth Maxwell. GD Spradlin is great as the cold hearted all-business head coach to who puts more value in the team's computer evaluations than his players. The ever-reliable Charles Durning also puts in an all-too-convincing performance as the mean spirited and manipulative assistant coach.

North Dallas Forty is a great movie..one of those rare flicks that manages to be entertaining and thought provoking at the same time. This is probably because a lot of the stuff in it, even though it was fiction, is based on events that, according to people not looking to protect the Cowboys organization and the NFL, actually happened.

score 9/10

eti55 22 January 2020

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw5428593/