Blue Chips (1994)

Pete Bell (Nick Nolte) is the hard-pressed college basketball coach of Western University running a seemingly clean program. Reporter Ed (Ed O'Neill) has been hounding him about an alleged point shaving incident four years ago. He has his first losing season after winning a few championships. He pushes his team to recruit harder. Butch McRae (Penny Hardaway)'s mother Lavada (Alfre Woodard) wants to be compensated. Farm boy Ricky Roe is more interested in girls. Neon Boudeaux (Shaq) traveled a winding road under the recruiters' radar and scored horribly with his SAT. Pete uses his ex-wife Jenny (Mary McDonnell) as his tutor. His idealism is constantly being worn away by school booster Happy (J.T. Walsh).

Nick Nolte holds this together as much as possible. There are many cameos. It's overloaded and some of it is unnecessary. There's no point in having Larry Bird. The movie has so much already. It could trim some of the extras. It has to tighten the first act because it is still waiting to introduce the new players. It's not until midpoint when Shaq finally shows up. Shaq doesn't deserve his Razzie. He's got natural charisma. It's also hard to make this team an underdog with Shaq around. The college ball corruption discussion can be overwrought but I'm fine with that.

Fmovies: Nick Nolte is Outstanding in his portrayal of a frustrated, ambitious basketball coach in 'Blue Chips'. The legendary actor, who's had a career full of amazing performances, tops himself, yet again with his portrayal in here.

'Blue Chips' Synopsis: A college basketball coach is forced to break the rules in order to get the players he needs to stay competitive.

'Blue Chips' is an interesting watch. Ron Shelton's Screenplay is grasping & often-confounding. It depicts a human-story, full of human-emotions & gives Nolte ample score to the anchor the film. William Friedkin's Direction is good.

Performance-Wise: Nolte is the life of the show. He's in complete command & holds the film from start to end. Its amongst his greatest performances, that proves us once again, what a fine actor Nolte is!

On the whole, 'Blue Chips' works & Nolte doesn't miss a single beat.

Nick Nolte plays a college University basketball coach forced to break the rules in order to stay competitive. He deals with guilt and struggles internally with something he has always been against.

What a surprise Blue Chips was, expecting a below par sports movie (based on reviews) but found a thought provoking and entertaining 110 minutes. To begin with it hits the normal sports movie beats but just when you think the drama is going one way, suddenly it doesn't and that only adds realism to the action.

William Friedkin does an excellent job in creating a tense and real life atmosphere, almost documentary style at least during the game-play scenes that makes you feel fully immersed. It's clear Friedkin and co have thoroughly researched this area and you get a sense of that while watching. The use of real life Basketball players and coaches adds to the authenticity.

During the drama the film deals with the shady dealings that no doubt goes on in American sports at college level (It's a massive deal, where careers and futures are made). A story of greed, cheating and pressure to win. Nolte is great in the role and gets to show off his soft side while also providing his well known manic style. Blue Chips really is an under-rated film although not perfect it deserves to be more well known.

Blue Chips fmovies. While the story was rather interesting, it seemed like it was too sensationalized for it own good. Unfortunately, in a movie about basketball players, one cannot find 7-foot actors, which meant Shaq O'Neal was one of the few people who could fill the role. This entire film tries to hard, accentuating points too harshly, and showing how corrupt the entire system in a manner that doesn't appear believable. I will say this, Nick Nolte really embodies the uber-Bobby Knight character, and what happened to Matt Nover? He was clearly the only good actor amongst all of the basketball players in the film.

This movie could have potentially been based on a true story. The plot of the movie was unlike any other basketball or sports movie. Also the casting of actual NBA players like Penny Hardaway and Shaq was brilliant by the director. They both played great parts in this movie as highly recruited blue chip basketball players and fit perfectly within the plot. This movie was also unique in the regards that it featured other universities like Bobby Knight and the Indiana Hoosiers. Although this movie was a great movie overall , i feel it could have had a better ending. The ending of the movie was pretty weak and was the only downfall of this movie. However I still believe that this is one of the best basketball movies of all time and there will never be a movie like this again.

This movie is very underrated, it hasn't gotten nearly the credit it deserves. I thought it was very well done, although it wasn't perfect, it was still very good. It is the first movie to talk about a problem that is very prominent in todays colleges and their methods of recruiting. The film is very well written and Nick Nolte does a great, great job playing the conflicted coach.