''The Best of Times'' is a 1986 American

comedy film A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending (black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the ol ...

directed by

Roger Spottiswoode John Roger Spottiswoode (born 5 January 1945) is a Canadian-British director, editor and writer of film and television. Early life He was born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and was raised in Britain. His father Raymond Spottiswoode was a British ...

, written by

Ron Shelton Ronald Wayne Shelton (born September 15, 1945) is an American film director and screenwriter and former minor league baseball infielder. Shelton is known for the many films he has made about sports. His 1988 film ''Bull Durham'', based in part on ...

, and starring

Robin Williams Robin McLaurin Williams (July 21, 1951August 11, 2014) was an American actor and comedian. Known for his improvisational skills and the wide variety of characters he created on the spur of the moment and portrayed on film, in dramas and come ...

and

Kurt Russell Kurt Vogel Russell (born March 17, 1951) is an American actor. He began acting on television at the age of 12 in the Westerns on television, western series ''The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (TV series), The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters'' (19 ...

as two friends attempting to relive a high school football game.

Plot

Jack Dundee (Williams) is a banker obsessed with what he considers the most shameful moment in his life: dropping a perfectly thrown pass in the final seconds of the 1972 high school football game between Taft and their arch rivals,

Bakersfield Bakersfield is a city in Kern County, California, United States. It is the county seat and largest city of Kern County. The city covers about near the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley and the Central Valley region. Bakersfield's populat ...

, which ended in a scoreless tie. Since that game, Jack has found it impossible to forget this event. He works for his father-in-law, The Colonel, Bakersfield's biggest supporter, who reminds him of the event almost daily. Thirteen years later, Jack coerces Reno Hightower (Russell), quarterback of the fateful game, and now a financially struggling van specialist in debt to Jack's bank, into helping him replay the game. Reno is the greatest quarterback in the history of South Kern County and the only QB to wear white shoes. With Reno and Jack together, they convince supporters in both towns to re-stage the game and in the process revitalizes Taft, as well as his and Reno's marriages.

Cast

Production

Filming

Much of the film was shot in and around the actual

Taft Union High School Taft Union High School is located in Taft in Kern County, California, in the United States. Taft High was founded in 1912. Taft is a small city of fewer than 10,000, and the school also serves the surrounding rural area, which in the early 21st ...

. The football scenes took place at Pierce Junior College in the

San Fernando Valley The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, California. Located to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it contains a large portion of the City of Los Angeles, as well as unincorporated ar ...

. The night game was filmed at

Moorpark High School Moorpark High School is a comprehensive public secondary school located in the Mountain Meadows neighborhood of Moorpark, Ventura County, California, and serves students from grades 9 through 12. It is part of the Moorpark Unified School Distric ...

, in Moorpark, CA.

Reception

Critical response

Walter Goodman of the ''New York Times'' drew attention to the "constrained" plot and uneven script, but was complimentary of Williams' "amiable performance" and relished the rousing ending which "leaves you with the sort of sappy happy feeling that Frank Capra and Preston Sturges used to provide." In the ''Los Angeles Times'', Michael Wilmington gave special praise to the co-stars, Williams and Russell, whom he described as "maybe the best thing" about the movie and excused the "excesses and flaws" of the script. Calling the film "a lip-smacking tale of all-American wish-fulfillment and a witty satire of its dangers," he commended scenarist Ron Shelton as having "a wickedly tight grip on the absurdities and dynamics of small American cities." Overall, though, the film has received mixed reviews over the decades since its release, with a 31% approval rating on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

based on 13 reviews. Audiences surveyed by

CinemaScore CinemaScore is a market research firm based in Las Vegas. It surveys film audiences to rate their viewing experiences with letter grades, reports the results, and forecasts box office receipts based on the data. Background Ed Mintz founded Ci ...

gave the film a grade "B+" on scale of A to F.

Pauline Kael Pauline Kael (; June 19, 1919 – September 3, 2001) was an American film critic who wrote for ''The New Yorker'' magazine from 1968 to 1991. Known for her "witty, biting, highly opinionated and sharply focused" reviews, Kael's opinions oft ...

called the film "a small town comedy where the whole population is caught up in some glorious foolishness." Scott Weinberg of eFilmCritic.com wrote: "Forgotten by most yet seemingly adored by those who choose to remember it, ''The Best of Times'' stands in my book as one of the truly great sports comedies."

References

External links

* * * 1986 films 1980s sports comedy-drama films American football films American sports comedy-drama films Films directed by Roger Spottiswoode Films produced by Gordon Carroll Films set in California Universal Pictures films 1980s English-language films 1980s American films {{1980s-comedy-drama-film-stub