Watch North Dallas Forty For Free

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

One of several films about beaten-up professional sports stars. One had Charlton Heston. This one has Nick Nolte. I get all of them mixed up. Usually the star has a final triumph and then quits while he's at the top, rather like Robert Redford in "The Natural". Come to think of it, the story doesn't have to be about sports. Charlton Heston played a similar role in the much better "Will Penny," as an aging cowboy realistically reduced to a life of three baths a year.Nick Nolte has some good scenes in this one. He's a laid-back football player for the North Dallas Bulls. He's not noticeably old but he's been so battered by playing the game he loves that he's dispirited, and the management doesn't like it. He should be playing for "the team." The management consists of Steve Forrest, Charles Durning, and G. D. Spradlin (in a semi-sympathetic role for a change). At the speech-ridden end, Nolte realizes that their argument about playing for the team is just so much horse hockey designed to win the championship and get Forrest's photo on the cover of time. Forrest is so rich he doesn't need the money that the team will make because he's a steel magnate, and a money magnet to boot. He only wants the glory, which is paid for by the blood of his players. Now, is that egocentricity or not? Nolte quits, presumably marries the girl (Dayle Hadden, beautiful but can't act), and retires to raise horses. Nolte was a little nervous about his two Big Scenes in the movie but he was my supporting player in "Weeds" and "Everybody Wins", so I helped him over the rough spots, as is the duty of any old pal.Genuine football fans -- and I'm not among their number -- will probably be disappointed because there aren't many scenes of football being played. Only one, really, and the set up isn't so hot, so it isn't as exciting as it should be. Redford's "The Natural," by contrast, had a great set up for the final game and the climax was spectacular and satisfying to our glands if not our aesthetics. Here, the most harrowing scene is when Nolte suffers a steroid shot behind his lemniscus in order to keep himself upright.The chief problem with the film is its lack of focus. What the hell is going on? Fast Eddy could talk about shooting pool in "The Hustler" and we could feel that his description, limited to only a few sentences, was authentic. The Germans call it Funktionslust, the love of doing what one does well. I didn't get it from Nolte or anybody else on the team, a couple of whom were bat-crap bonkers. None of them LOVED playing football.I guess the moral that we can drag in from somewhere outside the noösphere is that playing along with the team is childish and then when you grow up, you follow your own bliss. Spradlin even gets to quote the passage from St. Paul about "when I became a man, I put away childish things." But it's very confusing because we're told so often that Nolte has far more love for the game than he does for raising horses. His Funktionslust is a "childish thing"? I mean, you can see that the calculus doesn't quite work out. When I was a kid I wanted to be a catcher for the New York Yankees, but when I became a man I put away that childish thing because I realized I was a lousy ball player. Nolte, on the other hand, is supposed to be very good.Well, you can make up your own mind. I found it a little monotonous and basically dull and at cross-purposes with itself.

Fine sleeper film, very much a reflection of iconoclastic 1970's. Seldom has corruptive nature of professional sports been on more vivid display than here. Pro football (and others?) comes across as supremely exploitative of players, with millionaire owners collecting the reflected glory. Sure, the money is good as is the lure of easy women, while all the adulation is hard to resist, but the cost comes high as battered and bruised Nick Nolte finally figures out. Emphasis throughout is on obvious physical toll, but inner toll proves equally devastating. Team quarterback Mac Davis's sly character and coaching staff's slimy ploys illustrate that inner rot in sometimes subtle fashion. Davis's understated performance provides memorable glimpse of intelligent man trapped by own weaknesses. Also one of Nick Nolte's most natural performances in both a brilliant and unorthodox career. His Phil Elliot may not be as clever as Davis, but the love of the game is truer, helping him finally see through the clouds of hype. But where oh where was director Kotcheff when beleaguered non-actress Dale Haddon so clearly needed help. Her one and only expression, paralyzed fear, almost brings down the entire film. Was the casting of this ex-Playboy playmate Hugh Hefner's price for assistance with the production?Thanks Peter Gent for the gutsy expose' and Frank Yablans for bringing it to the screen intact. (After all those Monday evenings on TV, who could ever think of Tom Landry, Don Meredith or straight-laced Roger Staubach the same way again.) (Then too, fans might check out 1949's "Easy Living", a less caustic but also revealing film on the earlier days of pro football.) All in all, the screenplay of North Dallas is one of the best from the period -- humorous, savvy, and richly ironic -- the final boardroom scene arguably among the most compelling of any on sports. It's also one of the best arguments for getting athletics out of all those cathedrals of cult worship and back into neighborhood sandlots where they belong.

Ruby was inspiring and Brians song was a tear jerker. ND40 was just a great movie.Nolte is a great actor period. Down and out in Beverly Hills, 48hrs, Cape Fear and The Deep. Just a few of his many great roles. Sad to see him in some of his worst times. Though they should be forgiven due to his great contributions to film.The movie is about a receiver in the NFL and his conflicts with people and the team he plays for. A person that comes to realize that the damage to his honor and soul, not to mention his body are not worth the price anymore and his struggles to come to grips with this.This was before free agentry.Great scenes follow this movie throughout. If you haven't seen this movie, make some time and watch it.

This is an outstanding take on the 1970s NFL, back when it was a game of characters and passion, not the current business-like "No Fun League".Kudos to the writer/director. They smoothly mix bawdy comedy and drama. And they include many minor scenes that help round out the supporting characters. Several characters come across as stereotypes early on, but they are full-fledged individuals by the end of the movie.John Matuszak's "business or game?" rant near the end belongs in the sports movie hall of fame.Highly recommended.