The original idea may have been sound: if you had a chance to go back in time and change your life, and the people in it, would you? You may have posed this question to your friends, and had to keep raising the stakes to make it interesting, and ridiculous (yes, you still have your kids, but your wife is Michelle Pfeiffer).
This movie poses that question, and unfortunately, the stakes get just as ridiculous. Our subject, the former football star, wasn't just a football player, he was "Mr. Football," so much so that everyone reminds him about the "big game" he played in twenty years earlier. And the thick gets laid on from there. He's broke. The truck's rusty. The crops are dying. And if that isn't enough, his high school teammate, now living the life-that-should've-been-his, shows up with a gorgeous wife in an Aren't-You-Jealous Mobile, played, as usual, by a red Porsche 911.
Scott Murphy, the former star quarterback, bemoaning what's become of his life after football, tries to kill himself with carbon monoxide. After passing out, he either dreams, or actually travels back in time (the movie doesn't seem to know which) to the week of the "big game" that changes his life forever. He's back in high school, with healthy knees, the popular girlfriend, and a chance to do it all over again. Or do it ALL over again and end up right where he is (or isn't) in the same small town, same injured leg, same sweet wife and kids who love him, same problems. Hmmm.
Any time someone "travels back in time," I keep thinking of Doc Brown's rules, and our hero Scott Murphy seems to break all of them. Once, he even confronts his future wife, telling her about their future, proving it with intimate knowledge of her no one could possibly know, and after a short "how'd you know about that?" she brushes him off! But wait a minute, HOW'D HE KNOW ABOUT THAT? If someone showed up and did this to me, I'd either have to believe they were actually from the future, or I'd file a restraining order.
Then the big game. Does he repeat the winning play, the one that results with him being injured and giving up his dream to play college football and ending up stuck in this one-horse hick town? Or does he change things and take the path he missed the first time around, including a full scholarship to Ohio State, and, more stake-raising, a guaranteed road to NFL stardom? (side note: the OSU coach actually encourages him to quit his team on the day of the game so as not to get hurt?? They actually do this?)
Murphy realizes that if he changes the final play, like throw the ball to the wide open guy waving his arms for instance, or does anything to avoid having his knee blown up, (like I don't know, duck?) he'll lose his future wife, which is a baffling equation! Just because he doesn't get hurt? Couldn't he even have made the same decisions as before, stayed in the small town, married the small town girl, but with two healthy legs?? Or did they cut the scene where she tells him she'll marry him because she digs bitter guys with knee braces?
And more baffling stuff during the game. Yes it's refreshing to watch movie football where people actually seem to get hit, but why does the coach send "Mr. Football" back to return the kickoff? And why does Murphy then call a timeout after he's tackled and as anyone knows, the clock stops anyway? And why then, as he's contemplating his fateful decision, do we see the clock TICKING DOWN (7..6..5..)? And as he then takes 20 seconds or so to change the play, stare at his "wife," while anyone who can count to four knows the game would've ended fifteen seconds ago? Why, playing against a team we were told had the best pass defense in football, are the receivers all "wide open?" And WHY DOESN'T HE DUCK??
When he returns to the present, of course he has a new attitude, and everything works out Capra-nice. Of course it does. I can hear the writers saying "and the twist will be he DECIDES to do it just the same way! Yeah! It's a wonderful life, isn't it?" when the twist would've been "you know, all things considered, I'll take the blonde and the car!"
And when he returns, everything in his life is exactly the same, so I'm leaning towards the dream theory. A really really lucid dream. That carbon monoxide must be good stuff.
This movie poses that question, and unfortunately, the stakes get just as ridiculous. Our subject, the former football star, wasn't just a football player, he was "Mr. Football," so much so that everyone reminds him about the "big game" he played in twenty years earlier. And the thick gets laid on from there. He's broke. The truck's rusty. The crops are dying. And if that isn't enough, his high school teammate, now living the life-that-should've-been-his, shows up with a gorgeous wife in an Aren't-You-Jealous Mobile, played, as usual, by a red Porsche 911.
Scott Murphy, the former star quarterback, bemoaning what's become of his life after football, tries to kill himself with carbon monoxide. After passing out, he either dreams, or actually travels back in time (the movie doesn't seem to know which) to the week of the "big game" that changes his life forever. He's back in high school, with healthy knees, the popular girlfriend, and a chance to do it all over again. Or do it ALL over again and end up right where he is (or isn't) in the same small town, same injured leg, same sweet wife and kids who love him, same problems. Hmmm.
Any time someone "travels back in time," I keep thinking of Doc Brown's rules, and our hero Scott Murphy seems to break all of them. Once, he even confronts his future wife, telling her about their future, proving it with intimate knowledge of her no one could possibly know, and after a short "how'd you know about that?" she brushes him off! But wait a minute, HOW'D HE KNOW ABOUT THAT? If someone showed up and did this to me, I'd either have to believe they were actually from the future, or I'd file a restraining order.
Then the big game. Does he repeat the winning play, the one that results with him being injured and giving up his dream to play college football and ending up stuck in this one-horse hick town? Or does he change things and take the path he missed the first time around, including a full scholarship to Ohio State, and, more stake-raising, a guaranteed road to NFL stardom? (side note: the OSU coach actually encourages him to quit his team on the day of the game so as not to get hurt?? They actually do this?)
Murphy realizes that if he changes the final play, like throw the ball to the wide open guy waving his arms for instance, or does anything to avoid having his knee blown up, (like I don't know, duck?) he'll lose his future wife, which is a baffling equation! Just because he doesn't get hurt? Couldn't he even have made the same decisions as before, stayed in the small town, married the small town girl, but with two healthy legs?? Or did they cut the scene where she tells him she'll marry him because she digs bitter guys with knee braces?
And more baffling stuff during the game. Yes it's refreshing to watch movie football where people actually seem to get hit, but why does the coach send "Mr. Football" back to return the kickoff? And why does Murphy then call a timeout after he's tackled and as anyone knows, the clock stops anyway? And why then, as he's contemplating his fateful decision, do we see the clock TICKING DOWN (7..6..5..)? And as he then takes 20 seconds or so to change the play, stare at his "wife," while anyone who can count to four knows the game would've ended fifteen seconds ago? Why, playing against a team we were told had the best pass defense in football, are the receivers all "wide open?" And WHY DOESN'T HE DUCK??
When he returns to the present, of course he has a new attitude, and everything works out Capra-nice. Of course it does. I can hear the writers saying "and the twist will be he DECIDES to do it just the same way! Yeah! It's a wonderful life, isn't it?" when the twist would've been "you know, all things considered, I'll take the blonde and the car!"
And when he returns, everything in his life is exactly the same, so I'm leaning towards the dream theory. A really really lucid dream. That carbon monoxide must be good stuff.