Sport News 24/7
The 10 Most Unrealistic Moments in Sports Movies
/
Dan Fitch /
21 January 2009 /
Leave a Comment
The problem with sports movies is simple and twofold. Most actors can't play sports. Most athletes can't act.
The trickiest thing with a sports movie is making the action seem realistic. Most fall short and the events end up looking staged.
Here are the 10 most unrealistic moments in sports movies.
10. Rocky IV - Why spend money on sparring partners why you can just saw wood?
No sports movie is complete without a training montage. The key ingredients for a great training montage, are eighties rock music and an increasingly ridiculous exercise regime.
No one does the training montage better than the Rocky series. Who can forget Balboa preparing for world title shots, by chasing chickens around and pounding meat, while his foolhardy opponent was wasting his time sparring?
The greatest (and therefore, most ridiculous) Rocky training montage comes in Rocky IV. Rocky has for some reason arranged to fight the Russian Ivan Drago on Christmas Day in Moscow and travels to the USSR to train.
Then comes the montage. Footage of Drago's technologically advanced training regime, is contrasted by Rocky's somewhat simpler approach to getting fit. We see our hero sawing wood, climbing snowy mountains and pulling a sledge, as he prepares to finally face an opponent that is over 6ft tall.
9. The Replacements - Keanu sounds bored
A key scene in almost any sports movie is the one in which the coach/mentor/captain/girlfriend makes a motivational speech, which inspires our hero/heroes to a last ditch effort.
The Replacements is based around the plot of an NFL strike, which forces the Washington Sentinels to recruit a team of replacement players. Keanu Reeves plays the quarterback Shane Falco, a former college player with a history of choking.
It is Keanu who delivers the film's key motivational speech and unsurprisingly, the most expressionless actor of our generation, fails to deliver.
8. Over the Top - Who knew that arm wrestling was so popular?
You've got to hand it to Stallone. Once he's found a concept that works, he's willing to hammer it into the ground.
In Over the Top, Stallone plays yet another sportsman, in the shape of the wonderfully named, Lincoln Hawk. The film tells the tale of Hawk attempting to win both the world arm wrestling championship and the love of his estranged son.
Since when though, did so many people watch live arm wrestling? Even if people were willing to pay to see two men holding hands whilst sitting down, I don't believe that they would get this excited over the proceedings. At one point it looks as if the son's eyes are going to explode.
7. The Main Event - Ryan O'Neal punches Barbra Streisand in the face
Barbra Streisand plays a perfume magnate, whose accountant has stolen all her money. Babs looks through her assets and finds a boxer, Eddie 'Kid Natural' Scanlong, who was purchased as a tax write off.
Streisand decides to manage Eddie (Ryan O'Neal) in a bid to regain her fortune. Before long they're punch-drunk with love for each other, etc.
In this scene, the media have got wind of the fact that a boxer is being managed by a striking looking Jewish woman, with a 7/10 body and decide that it will make a splash on the sports pages. Before long, the PR stunt gets out of hand and O'Neal and Streisand are going toe to toe.
6. Teen Wolf - A basketball-playing werewolf is not the most unrealistic aspect of this movie
Scott is a mediocre high school basketball player on a losing team, who upon transforming into a werewolf, finds that he has unbeatable hoop skills. Yeah, I'll buy that.
What I don't buy is the final game, when Scott realises that he has to win on his own merits, without turning into the wolf.
How is a basketball team without a single black player and featuring a really fat guy and the 5ft 4" Michael J. Fox going to beat anyone?
5. Varsity Blues - Dawson turns down the chance to get it on with the worst character from Heroes
OK, so it's not strictly a sports scene, but in terms of implausibility and the fact that it appears in a sports movie, this scene from Varsity Blues has to make to cut.
If it wasn't enough that Dawson is cast as a high school football hero, we are then expected to believe that when presented with one Ali Larter wearing nothing but whipped cream, he'd turn her down.
Still, Dawson does have a history of turning down sure-fire opportunities with beautiful women, as Joey and Jen would testify. I always did think that he looked at Pacey in a strange manner...
4. Escape To Victory - Stallone saves a penalty kick
Known simply as Victory in the USA, this John Huston film tells the tale of a group of World War II POWs, who agree to play a soccer game against a German team, as part of a Nazi propaganda stunt.
In terms of authenticity, this movie benefits from the fact that a number of the roles were filled by top professional players such as Pele, Bobby Moore and Ossie Ardiles.
Unfortunately it also features the footballing talents of the then 48 year old Michael Caine and Sylvester Stallone, who stars as the goalkeeper of the team.
To put this casting into context, a 5ft 9" tall goalkeeper is about as rare as a 5ft 9" heavyweight champion. Despite his physical disadvantage, Sly pulls off a number of great saves to keep the Allies in the game. Then, with the score at 4-4 and with just seconds remaining, the Germans are awarded a dubious penalty.
It comes as no surprise when Stallone pulls off a brilliant slow motion save. What makes the action particularly unrealistic is not just the fact that Stallone actually catches the ball, but his jubilant celebrations that follow. He randomly just punts the ball up the field, despite there being no obvious sign that the referee has called time on the match.
3. White Men Can't Jump - Semi-retarded bartenders from Cheers can't jump
Come on. The movie's called White Men Can't Jump. Why does the white guy have to make the dunk? He could have just proved that he was good in other ways, like Larry Bird.
If we're meant to believe that Woody Harrelson can make the dunk, then actually show him doing it. Don't play the scene in slow motion and just show us the top half of Woody's body as he dunks. We know he's got Norm and Cliff underneath, holding him in the air.
That said, despite this scene, White Men Can't Jump is one of my favourite sports movies. Primarily because I have a penchant for squawking Latino women.
2. Any Given Sunday - Stare into the eyes of Al Pacino and Jamie Foxx
Perhaps more than in any other genre, the sports movie requires a climatic ending where against all the odds, our protagonist achieves their goal.
Sometimes though, the director can take things a little too far. I give to you Exhibit A: Oliver Stone's Any Given Sunday.
The final game of Stone's football drama is presented with the sort of dramatic reverence, normally reserved for a scene in a WWI drama, when the troops get the order to go over the top.
Watched in context, this scene was just too much. Watched out of context, it's completely ridiculous.
1. Rocky V - The world watches a street brawl
To describe the most unrealistic moment in any of the Rocky films, I need to use just three words. Televised street fight.
Having retired from the ring, Rocky begins to train the young fighter, Tommy 'The Machine' Gunn, played by the real life boxer Tommy Morrison. Like most youngsters, Tommy proves to be an ungrateful little bastard and dumps Rocky, when offered a lucrative title shot.
Tommy wins the title, but is criticised by the public and media, who prefer Rocky's style of fighting. i.e. for every clean blow you land, you get punched in the head around 20 times.
Looking to prove that he's better than Rocky, Tommy hunts Balboa down and challenges him to a fight. When Rocky turns the other cheek, Tommy looks for the nearest person with a face you'd like to punch and gives Paulie a smack. Now he's got Rocky's attention.
A street fight breaks out between Rocky and Tommy. Of course, a news crew is waiting nearby and before long the whole tawdry affair is being beamed live around the globe.
The highlight of the fight is undoubtedly Sage Stallone yelling: "Come on, knock that bum out, he stole my room!"
