The Best of Times (1986)

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Robin Williams and Kurt Russell star in this alleged comedy about a loser (Williams) who decides to recreate the high school football game in which he dropped the ball and lost the game, sentencing his community to years and years of misery and heartache. To care much about The Best of Times, you have to believe that the lost game really sent the town into a downward spiral and that recreating the game thirteen years later could do any good whatsoever. You have to suspend your disbelief that all the players would come back, and that the entire town would decorate the streets and show up in hordes. You should also probably give a shit about football, which I don’t.

I love Williams and Russell, but their charisma barely kept my attention here. The film doesn’t stray from formula, so you know exactly what’s going to happen moment by moment, and there’s nothing coming out of left field to surprise you. Fortunately, writer Ron Shelton would go on to bigger and more interesting movies like Bull Durham and Tim Cup. With Pamela Reed, Holly Palance, Donald Moffat, M. Emmet Walsh, and Dub Taylor. Look for Growing Pains star Kirk Cameron as Kurt Russell’s son.