Women who have ever wondered what makes men so screwed up need only watch this movie. This film is a showcase for silly macho posing and posturing. Tom Berenger plays college football coach Paul Bryant who is nicknamed "Bear" because he supposedly wrestled a bear. Uh. Yeah. Right. Happens all the time! Bryant was part of that generation of dead white males you'd like to bring back to life just so you could repeatedly kick them between the legs for the kind of world they left behind.
Bryant runs a sadistic training camp where he abuses and humiliates his young players who have to endure the intense Texas summer heat as well as their jerk of a coach. Glorifying this type of thing after football players have died in real life under hot summer conditions is beyond irresponsible but I guess this kind of thing lets guys pretend they're "real men." Bryant is so deranged and vicious a better title for this would have been BEAR BRYANT: SHE-WOLF OF THE S.S. The psycho nearly cripples one player and otherwise jeopardizes the health of all the other young men under his charge except for the smart ones who run off. Needless to say the repulsive Bryant refers to those smart ones as weaklings and "ballerinas". What an enlightened man our hero is! More fun comes from the fact that Bryant's "trainer" is a grizzled drunk called "Smokey" (Maybe he once wrestled Smokey the bear?) who has no real medical background and just hands out aspirin which is of course useless against the kind of damage his reptilian boss is inflicting on the players. At one point a sensible player is trying to actually take care of his health but Bryant dissuades him from pursuing this course by regaling him with a tall tale about how he himself once played an entire game "dragging a broken leg behind him." And the stupid kid actually believes him!
SPOILER AHEAD
This ugly story can't even hide behind an ending in which the team goes on to accomplish great things following their inhumane treatment by the whacko Bryant. Like an O. Henry story this baby ends with a twist: the team only wins one game that season! By this point you might suspect the story of being a dark parody of twisted machismo but no, we're supposed to pretend Bear Bryant has learned something from the experience. One boy's father is a former POW who lost an arm in the war (and therefore escapes Bryant's blanket dismissal of everyone who disagrees with him as a wimp) and when Bryant makes with the disgusting jock habit of comparing football with war this fellow reasonably points out that he knows all about war but football is supposed to be a sport. This is too little too late and there's nowhere near enough emotional payoff from this brief bit to make us really believe Bryant's macho bluster has been deflated.
I don't know if the real Bear Bryant was as cruel as he is depicted in this film but if he was then a more suitable salute to him is the way the monkey on an old TV show called B.J. AND THE BEAR was named after him.
Bryant runs a sadistic training camp where he abuses and humiliates his young players who have to endure the intense Texas summer heat as well as their jerk of a coach. Glorifying this type of thing after football players have died in real life under hot summer conditions is beyond irresponsible but I guess this kind of thing lets guys pretend they're "real men." Bryant is so deranged and vicious a better title for this would have been BEAR BRYANT: SHE-WOLF OF THE S.S. The psycho nearly cripples one player and otherwise jeopardizes the health of all the other young men under his charge except for the smart ones who run off. Needless to say the repulsive Bryant refers to those smart ones as weaklings and "ballerinas". What an enlightened man our hero is! More fun comes from the fact that Bryant's "trainer" is a grizzled drunk called "Smokey" (Maybe he once wrestled Smokey the bear?) who has no real medical background and just hands out aspirin which is of course useless against the kind of damage his reptilian boss is inflicting on the players. At one point a sensible player is trying to actually take care of his health but Bryant dissuades him from pursuing this course by regaling him with a tall tale about how he himself once played an entire game "dragging a broken leg behind him." And the stupid kid actually believes him!
SPOILER AHEAD
This ugly story can't even hide behind an ending in which the team goes on to accomplish great things following their inhumane treatment by the whacko Bryant. Like an O. Henry story this baby ends with a twist: the team only wins one game that season! By this point you might suspect the story of being a dark parody of twisted machismo but no, we're supposed to pretend Bear Bryant has learned something from the experience. One boy's father is a former POW who lost an arm in the war (and therefore escapes Bryant's blanket dismissal of everyone who disagrees with him as a wimp) and when Bryant makes with the disgusting jock habit of comparing football with war this fellow reasonably points out that he knows all about war but football is supposed to be a sport. This is too little too late and there's nowhere near enough emotional payoff from this brief bit to make us really believe Bryant's macho bluster has been deflated.
I don't know if the real Bear Bryant was as cruel as he is depicted in this film but if he was then a more suitable salute to him is the way the monkey on an old TV show called B.J. AND THE BEAR was named after him.