Blue Chips

There is a story behind my acquisition of this movie. My friends back home go to a bar every Thursday night to compete in a weekly trivia contest. They've probably gone to twenty-five of these events or so, but I've only been around to three of them. (We won all three I went to, and I'm told they rarely win. Coincidence? No. I am pretty good at trivia.) Anyway, the third time we won, a prize was bestowed upon us: four very, very random DVDs that the trivia host had clearly found in a bargain bin somewhere. I already forget the other three flicks, but as team MVP I felt I had earned the rights to sole possession of at least one of the four DVDs even though we were a seven-man team. I immediately went for the one with a "$2.99" Newbury Comics sticker on it. It happened to be Blue Chips. I tried to get trivia teammates to watch this one with me, but no one was biting. So now, a month later, I've decided to make it my final viewing before a weeklong spring break vacation. So yeah. Nick Nolte. Shaq. Penny Hardaway. Hell, even Larry Bird, Dick Vitale, and Bob Knight make appearances. Besides, what better time to watch a movie about college basketball than March? The summary, in a nutshell: Nolte coaches a team that, to put it gently, ain't as good as it once was. Several higher-ups at the school convince him to do some illegal recruiting to land several top prospects with cash payments and gifts. People start to suspect him and after a huge win he confesses everything in a press conference. The end. All in all, the movie was exactly what I expected it to be - not "good" by any means, but certainly not an epic failure. In general, very average and forgettable. Hey, I'll take it. In fact, I already did. Here's wondering if any of the other three DVDs we (I, dammit) won that night will even get watched.