Semi-Tough is Burt Reynolds second stint as a professional football player on the big screen. After starring in The Longest Yard four years prior, it would be tough to follow such a successful film with another one. I wonder what drew him and Kris Kristofferson to such a project because this is by far the most pointless football movie I’ve watched to date.
If you look up the synopsis you’ll learn that both guys are in love with the same girl and all three are best friends. You may be thinking this is going to be a messy love triangle story with lots of drama that will hurt the team in the end. Let me tell you that none of that happens. There is no tension between any of the main characters. Even if there was, you’d never guess.
This film is hardly about football than it is about romance. Also labelled a comedy, I wonder where the laughs were because I didn’t laugh once. Why have most of the movies I’ve watched about life and football from the 1970’s and 1980’s so bad? The ideas most of these films are based on are not worth telling or even deserve a feature-length film. Semi-Tough fits into that category because it was never worth getting invested in.
I couldn’t wait until the end, which featured a Super Bowl type of championship game. That too ended up being a dud, much like the wedding that brought the film to a close. Somewhere in the middle is a self-help retreat that ate up about 25 minutes of the movie. Thankfully I made it to the end because had I not, I may have had to enroll in that mindless class to regain an ounce of my sanity. 1/10
Ten Stars or Less 