Varsity Blues
Varsity Blues is a 1999 film about teenage angst in the fictional town of West Canaan, Texas that is engrossed in the local high school football program, and their winning-obsessed coach Bud Kilmer (played by Jon Voight). This movie is also filmed on location in Georgetown, Texas and even used the local high school’s football stadium.1
Movie stardom might be defined as the ability to play someone who’s too good to be true and make that person seem just typical enough to be you. James Van Der Beek has that skill down as if born to it in the slickly enjoyable Varsity Blues.2
In Varsity Blues, James Van Der Beek stars as Jonathan Moxon, a second string quarterback who never gets any playing time because of the star quarterback of a small town in Texas. This town is obsessed with football and treats like a second religion.3
Unfortunately, Voight is not in every scene, and, when he’s absent, Varsity Blues has a tendency to flounder, descending into the realm of formulaic sports movie melodrama. Although the film takes a worthwhile detour or two, it ultimately finds its way back to the well-worn track of its genre.4
Brian Robbins’ “Varsity Blues” is set in arguably the most football-crazed part of this country: Texas, home of the Alamo, crushed Armadillos, and the Cowboys (Dallas variety). The small-town setting is captured to perfection; every available space is painted up in school colors, and beer-bellied former players aren’t satisfied with merely attending games — they also have to watch the practices.5