Pre-Friday Night Lights, pre-We Are Marshall, pre-Glory Road, Varsity Blues (1999) is nonetheless a step in their direction with its depiction of a snarky, proto-intellectual backup QB (James Van Der Beek) who dethrones a throwback, Neanderthalish career high school football coach after the starter goes down with a nasty broken leg.

In Texas, as in many parts of the American Midwest and South, high school football is just about a second religion and one which gets much more attention than their first. Players are given passes on every transgression and West Canaan even built a statue of Coach Bud Kilmer (Jon Voight) out front of the ball field. Jon Moxon (Van Der Beek), despite signing up to be the second string quarterback, mocks the adulation and yearns to escape to the Ivy League.

In this season the Coyotes are closing in on a 23rd division title in Kilmer’s 25th year in charge when Lance Harbor (Paul Walker) gets creamed after Billy Bob (Ron Lester), an effective yet massively overweight lineman, has a near heart attack as the ball’s snapped. Harbor’s done and Moxon must come on to finish the game and season. He can’t stomach the masochistic, racist Kilmer and his success gives him the leverage to ignore him. Also, there’s a hot scene where the boys spend the night before the Big Game at a strip bar where one of their younger, hotter teachers picks up some extra cash.

mildly recommended