The time lapse involved between reading the Dan Jenkins book and catching this picture is now closing in on about forty years for me. My best recollection is that the book was hilarious, one of those stories that you don't stop reading until you're done. The difference between this film and the novel are palpable, even after four decades. I didn't get that much of a charge out of the flick.So calling this a football movie would be a misnomer, there's really very little game action in the story. The main idea here was sending up all those self help seminars of the Seventies meant to get one in touch with one's self. I had a college prof once who took a similar approach, asking the class to position themselves (in our desks) in a manner meant to convey how in touch we were with him and the rest of the students. For a liberal school, I couldn't sit far enough away. But we read a lot of R. Crumb - keep on truckin' dude! So with all the 'being where it's at', 'getting it or not getting it', and the whole business about mixed marriages, this flick got a little tedious after a while. Jill Clayburgh was the perfect casting call for the role of Barbara Jane. I've seen her in a few other films and she's got the tedious thing down pretty well pat.Reading some of the other reviews I see the film has it's share of adherents, but if it's a 'real' football movie you want, along with Burt Reynolds, your best bet is to head on over to 1974's "The Longest Yard" or the 2005 remake of the same name - Reynolds is in both.

The majority of Michael Ritchie's early films focused on the competitiveness and ruthlessness of a then contemporary United States. Be it "Downhill Racer" (1969), "Bad News Bears" (1976), "Smile" (1975) or "The Candidate" (1972), all his films during this period are explicitly about competition, American institutions and individuals who put their personal goals (and/or profits) before a team, community or group (or vice versa).One of Ritchie's weakest films, "Semi Tough" is a shapeless and abrasive satire which focuses on the world of American Foodball. Ritchie takes aim at obsessions with winning, self-help programmes, health fads and the vanity and vacuity of the self-obsessed. His overall target, though, is a more generalised form of "self-improvement". American capitalism itself hinges on a certain unquenchable, existential lack. The consumer is always unfulfilled, always in need of completion, an anxiety which capitalism incessantly creates desires to exploit. Failures to attain contentment are then transfered back to the subject, leading to guilt and an escalation of transfered desires; maybe the next hit will bring completion. Elsewhere the film watches as children of the 1960s struggle in their search for meaning a decade after vague promises of liberation collapsed. What they latch onto is essentially a New Age cult which mixes narcissism and individualism with corporate maxims. Other Ritchie themes are brought up - the costs and violence of winning, exacted on both winners and losers etc - but it all feels forced, Ritchie trying too hard to be the next Altman. Tonally, the film struggles to juggle comedy, satire and drama."Semi Tough" is criticised for being smug and abrasive, but that's understandable, considering it's populated by smug, abrasive and self-obsessed characters. The film would begin Ritchie's slide into more mainstream, forgettable territory. Robert Altman's similarly themed "HEALTH" was released one year later.5/10 - Worth one viewing.

Advertised as a sexy comedy about pro-football players and their women, this Michael Ritchie film, based on the book by Dan Jenkins, instead takes aim at fads and other eccentricities of the 1970s, using the sports world as a backdrop. It wasn't the big commercial hit some were predicting, though it garnered good notices for Burt Reynolds, doing another of his amiable walk-throughs. Jill Clayburgh, just prior to her breakthrough in "An Unmarried Woman", plays the daughter of the football team's owner, and her rapport with Reynolds is surprisingly instantaneous. Kris Kristofferson, on the other hand, ends up playing straight man to her and pal Reynolds, and the third-wheel position subdues low-keyed Kristofferson even further (he evaporates). There are some funny potshots at the EST craze, with Bert Convy well-cast as a self-help guru, but the romantic comedy at the heart of the piece never quite takes off. Ritchie puts all his sting into the absurdities happening around the principals, a move which consequently leaves the finale seeming half-baked. ** from ****

Looking for a comedy about missed romantic opportunities told through a juxtaposition of rough-housing and inner reflections? Then watch "A Mid-Summer Night's Dream". Essentially "Semi-Tough" sells the pain of misdirected love by chasing the emotions down with a shot of football-player toughness and religious/spiritual ineptness. Compare that approach to juxtaposition of the rowdy Nick Bottom and boisterous Puck to pining Helena and Hermia. Semi tough even one-ups Shakespeare by taking using the same characters to embody these disparate virtues.In biting off this challenge, however, the movie strays from the characters and into lapses of football games and farcical "individual awareness" training. Only Puckett's character manages to be mildly interesting, yet he fails to take center stage in the action - which is muddled by distractions. Kristofferson's character quickly becomes 1 dimensional, leaving me indifferent to the final climax. And the closing dialogue begs the question, "where did the title come from?"