Incredibly bad. (spoilers)

vertigo_14

This movie uses a fairly ridiculous premise to argue a position on abortion (of which consumes most of the latter half of the movie), even if this was not the sole intention of the writers or filmmakers.

The story is about a team of college debaters. Two of them, Tucker (Kirk Cameron) and Monica (Jami Gertz) are among the prestigious newcomers who are the fortunate recipients of the only two debating scholarships received by the incoming Kenmont College freshman class. They are, of course, total opposites at first with Tucker being the out-going former Okie with some kind of laughable rebellious past. And Monica is the quiet, obedient young woman from Chicago.

The team "coach" is Charlie Nichols (Roy Scheider) who is secretly scheming with the star debater and all-around guy, Garson's (Tim Quill) Senator father who predicts that success on the debate will naturally lead his boy into success in politics, carrying on the family tradition. In fact, Garson's father demands it, while Garson just wants to be a writer. This point in the story is fairly idiotic in and of itself, despite the attempts to elicit our sympathies for the guy who should be left alone to make his own decisions about his career plans, especially when he's both dedicated and good at what he does.

This familial struggle starts to make the rest of the film fairly wishy-washy because we keep wavering between focusing on this element and that of the two new debaters trying to stake out their own successes on the team. And then, there are a few subplots still (such as the odd moments when Donna--Amanda Peterson--a disabled member of the team is frequently and reluctantly courted by fellow teammate, Bruce--Chris Atkins).

In the meantime, while all of this goes on, the team is leading up to a competition in a major tournament in which it will debate abortion before the Supreme Court. In the filmmakers defense, the arguments made on both sides are very thought-provoking, but makes a policy argument so dramatic and climactic that this hardly seemed like an adequate forum. Picture something like the near-defeated Mr. Smith (in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) making his heroic hours-long speech about the Constitution and morality.

It gets about that corny and not to mention, the film has portrayed a college debate team in such a way that as to make it comparable to the image of a great football team or some other great academic team setting. Even student government might've worked better. And I agree with another who said that debate participants are trained on arguments and ethics and not the kind of false sympathy trials that the teammates here stake (and win) their case on.

This drastically unrealistic and uneven approach, coupled with ample moments of corny dialog, does not make for an especially good film. However, for nostalgics who don't mind b-movie tripe, I would recommend it simply for the cast alone as it was not only a vehicle for Cameron, Gertz, and Scheider, but also Chris Rydell (How I Got Into College), Quinn Cummings (The Goodbye Girl), and Peter DeLuise, among others.

score 2/10

vertigo_14 23 March 2006

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1323205/