THE WORST OF TIMES
Directed by Robert Spottiswoode
Starring Robin Williams, Kurt Russell, Pamela Reed
Released January 31st, 1986
Rated PG-13
Some films don’t find an audience upon initial release and fade into obscurity, waiting to be rediscovered years later. It’s a joy when one finds a good film that is all but forgotten by the general public. But sometimes you watch an obscure film and understand why it’s been lost to time. Such was my underwhelming experience watching The Best of Times. I vaguely recall coming across the movie on television years ago, but I couldn’t remember anything about it outside of the fact that it involved football and starred Robin Williams and Kurt Russell. I didn’t recall if it was a comedy or a drama. Turns out it’s not much of anything at all.
Kurt Russell is Reno Hightower, a small-town mechanic regarded as a local hero due to his high school quarterback career. Robin Williams is Jack Dundee, a nebbish who can’t move past what he considers his greatest failure: dropping the football thrown by Hightower that would have won the big high school rivalry game, fourteen years earlier. This haunts Jack to the degree that he pays a prostitute for weekly visits during which he just talks about his football failure.
During one of these clandestine encounters, Jack gets the idea to rewrite history and replay the game against the neighboring town. Most of the film concerns Jack trying to convince everyone that this is a good idea, including Reno Hightower. Eventually the citizens of both towns get behind the crazy idea, leading to montages of out-of-shape men training for the rematch. The climatic, very muddy football game offers the chance for the small town to get its mojo back, and for Jack and Reno to revitalize their languishing marriages with Elly (Holly Palance) and Gigi (Pamela Reed), respectively.
This look at how important amateur football games can be to small towns isn’t very funny or charming. It’s not the highest of stakes for a movie, and it’s such a flimsy concept that the story has difficulty maintaining interest during its running time. The script lacks momentum and I never became invested in the one-note characters or their go-nowhere story. Even Kurt Russell’s considerable charisma isn’t enough to make the movie worthwhile. Jack Dundee isn’t really a dramatic role for Robin Williams, though he doesn’t play the character as big as you may expect. Because this is a movie from the 1980s, we have a supporting cast featuring mainstays M. Emmet Walsh and Kathleen Freeman, and eagle-eyed viewers will notice appearances from Robyn Lively, Kirk Cameron, and Tracey Gold.
The transfer on the Kino Lorber Blu-ray doesn’t look like a significant upgrade from past home video releases, and the disc doesn’t sport many special features, offering only a few trailers and an audio commentary from director Robert Spottiswoode and screenwriter Ron Shelton. It’s understandable why this film is just a faded memory.