The underdog sports movie has become such
an ingrained part of Hollywood that I suspect it will never
go away. The plots are always the same and they always end in
the Big Game, where the underdog manages to pull through with
some spectacular display of unprecedented athleticism.
To be believable, there has to be at least
some small indication that the underdog has a chance at winning.
Side Out ignores this rule.
The sport of choice in this underdog story
is beach volleyball and Side Out makes the mistake of pitting
C. Thomas Howell and the aging 30 Something star Peter Horton
against some of the top players in the world. To think that
these guys have a chance requires more than suspension of disbelief
-- it requires you to take your disbelief out back and beat
it to death with a club.
Howell stars as Monroe Clark, a would be lawyer
who has come to California to intern with his uncle, Max (Terry
Kiser). Max runs a firm that is predictably unscrupulous and
he promptly sends out Monroe to serve eviction papers on the
properties owned by the firm's clients. While serving his papers,
Monroe is distracted by the beach and although he has never
played volleyball before, he finds himself in the middle of
an impromptu match against two top ranked players.
Monroe has the revelation that volleyball
is his calling. Conveniently enough, he has to serve eviction
papers on one Zack Barnes (Horton), who just happens to be a
retired world-class player.
Will Barnes come out of retirement to teach
Monroe? Will Monroe and Barnes team up to compete in the Big
Game? If you really need me to answer these questions, then
you need to get out more.
It isn't that Side Out is a bad movie. Well,
OK, maybe it is. The problem is that is it just never seems
possible that Howell and Horton could ever be that good at volleyball.
The movie further cripples its believability by making Howell's
character completely new to the game. Miyagi may have been able
to train Daniel-San for a karate tournament in a few short months,
but Zack Barnes ain't no Miyagi.
The film does make a stab at some characterization
and a plot that is more involved than just hitting a ball over
a net, but it isn't enough to save the film.
There is one mystery within the film that
is never adequately solved: Just where in the hell did Monroe
get all of those Mossimo beach clothes?
