User Reviews

Plot; A young pre-law student from the Midwest (C. Thomas Howell) spends the Summer in L.A. working for his Uncle's firm.

While serving an eviction notice, he meets a washed up beach volleyball player (Peter Horton), forming an unlikely friendship that eventually leads to the two of them entering a high stakes beach volleyball tournament.

'Side Out' is insultingly contrived--even for the genre--and beyond stupid. Its limited appeal lies in the trappings of its era (released in 1990, but a total 80s movie through and through) and whatever charm its game cast can scrape from the bottom of its barrel.

As an avid beach volleyball player I found this movie to be an embarrassment to true players everywhere. C. Thomas Howell's character lacks a lot of the basic volleyball skills(especially setting) to make it believable. Randy Stoklos/Sinjin Smith the opponents in the final were one of the greatest volleyball teams in the world at that time however they were HORRIBLE actors and had too many lines (more than one was probably enough). The scene that topped it off was the ridiculously bad(and illegal) set that Howell's character made on match point to win the championship! I can understand making a point of an underdog coming out of nowhere to get to an AVP final but the manner in which it was done was a joke to all those players who work their butts off to be on the tour year in and year out.

This is one of those movies that I came across on HBO one night and although I did not "Hate" the movie I did think it had the possibility to be much better.

The movie is basically about a businessman (Monroe) who takes up volleyball and eventually wins the final tournament to become the world champion. I admit it is kind of a weak storyline but not all respectable movies have great storylines.

My basic problem with the movie was the shot selection. To me, being a respectable volleyball player both indoors and in the sand, much of the action scenes brought laughter to me. It is almost as if this movie pretty much ruled out Hollywoods desire to create a good volleyball movie.

Basically, the movie is not horrible by any means but could have been much better with better direction (no offense to Peter Israelson). I just hope Hollywood will overlook this production and give the sport another chance on the big screen with the growing popularity.

Overall: 4/10

Down the years there have been some pretty good sporting movies - Grand Prix, Slap Shot, Rocky, Raging Bull, Chariots Of Fire, and Any Given Sunday spring to mind. One sport that film-makers haven't done to death is beach volleyball. It's not a sport I know much about (in England, where I live, it is not a widely played game), but clichéd and totally predictable hokum like "Side Out" hardly encourages the uninitiated to want to become fans of it. Perhaps the biggest issue I have with this movie is the way that it suggests an inexperienced kid could go from zero to hero in the beach volleyball rankings within the space of two weeks. You don't have to know ANYTHING about ANY sport to know that things like that simply don't happen. Becoming a champion at anything takes years of sweat, tears, dedication and sheer determination. "Side Out" is an insulting movie - to its sport, to sports generally, and to its audience.

Milwaukee law student Monroe Clark (C. Thomas Howell) comes to Los Angeles for the summer, where he is meant to be gaining some work experience with his wealthy Uncle Max (Terry Kiser). It isn't long before the cocksure Monroe starts sniffing around for the affections of Samantha (Courtney Thorne-Smith). And it only takes him a little longer to make friends with Zack Barnes (Peter Horton), a faded beach volleyball player who had the talent to reach the top but never quite made it. As the boring paper-work piles up, Monroe becomes more and more interested in learning how to play beach volleyball and he believes Zack is just the man to show him the ropes. Pretty soon, Zack's passion for the game is re-ignited, leading to him and Monroe becoming a two-man team who enter an AVP tournament. Will the old pro and the young pretender be able to battle their way to victory?

A quick summary of the plot synopsis is enough to confirm that "Side Out" is a formulaic, predictable sports drama of the most simple-minded kind. If you find yourself doubting at any point what the outcome of the movie will be, then you ain't seen many films of this kind! But it is not merely the predictability that spoils the film. For one thing, the people who made the movie are so much in love with California that they virtually paint it as paradise on earth, sugar-coating every facet of life in Los Angeles with embarrassingly over-the-top glitz and glamour. Another weakness is the performances - Howell's cocky youngster comes across as too smug and irritating to truly root for; Horton acts better from the neck down; Thorne-Smith is undone by a typically weak "pretty face" role; and Kiser still seems to think he's playing a corpse (as he did in the previous year's "Weekend At Bernie's"). Those knowledgeable about the sport might find some pleasure in spotting several real players in guest roles, and those who admire toned female bodies in tight bikinis will find sufficient eye candy to occupy their mind. But for everyone else, "Side Out" is a tiresome trip down a road travelled too often in cinematic terms - the sport might be different, but the clichés and the outcome are as obvious as ever!

Aurora Productions was a film production company established in Hollywood, California in 1978 by Rich Irvine and James L. Stewart, who were former Disney execs. They released six movies, The Secret of NIMH, Heart Like a Wheel, the two Eddie and the Cruisers movies, Maxie and this film, which was the one that ended the studio.

Monroe Clark (C. Thomas Howell) wants to be a lawyer, but he soon meets Zack Barnes (Peter Horton) and Wiley (Christopher Rydell, Trauma) who show him that there's another way to live your life, a more carefree zen state of beach volleyball. However, Monroe's uncle Max (Terry Kiser, always the villain, right?) wants to evict the volleyball players. You can imagine how act three of the hero's journey will play out.

Side Out also has Courtney Throne-Smith; Harley Jane Kozak (The House on Sorority Row); pro volleyball players Randy Stoklos, Sinjin Smith, Craig Moothartm Steve Obradovich, Steve Timmons, Ricci Luyties, Tim Hovland and Mike Dodd; Tony Burton (Duke from Rocky) and Kathy Ireland.

Filmed on some of California's most popular beach areas, including Hermosa, Zuma and Manhattan beaches, this movie had Horton and Howell being trained by Jon Stevenson, one of the most successful and respected pros in the game of beach volleyball, who acted as the film's major consultant, volleyball technical adviser and game choreographer.

The final match between Horton and Howell against Stoklos and Smith took six days to film. For Horton, it was the opportunity to live out his dream of playing volleyball for a living, saying "One of the reasons I was attracted to this project was the chance to play volleyball and get paid for it. That's a scam."

The script comes from David Thoreau, who mostly wrote for TV, and was directed by Peter Israelson, who mainly made music videos, including Whitney Houston's "The Greatest Love of All" and Expose's "Seasons Change."

Perhaps the strangest thing to me is that this film features "Playing with the Boys" by Kenny Loggins, which also played during the Top Gun volleyball scene, perhaps making that song the unofficial anthem of beach volleyball.

There aren't many beach volleyball movies -- I guess Green Flash and Spiker are the only two that I can remember -- so if you're looking for a film in this very small genre or just want to stare at Horton, well, this is for you.

Spoilers herein.

Sometimes the only value or pleasure you can get out of a film is to speculate on how you can make it better.

Here is the old saw about a washed up athlete coming back and winning the championship. Naturally a love interest also has role in the business. Naturally, there is youngster to coach.

The discriminator this time around was, I suppose, buff male volleyball players. But everything is so uninspired it makes my head hurt.

However, this could have been a really good film because of the nature of the game. Every interesting filmmaker gets around to a sports film sooner of later. The `large team' sports are all about masses of people moving about, so when Oliver Stone gets involved, you get an interesting cinematic experience that has little to do with the game and everything to do with the choreography of movement.

Boxing is something else that has been explored well, starting with Chaplin 80 years ago and peaking (for now) with `Raging Bull' which explored many approaches to engaging us in sharing the ring. Stallone exploited that as well. In these films, the handling of the sport is the excuse for everything in these films, and a worthy reason for a visual outing.

Beach volleyball is an interesting, untapped opportunity. It is highly dimensional; the movement of the game involves people moving as individuals and small groups and in a way unencumbered by equipment and costumes. It has confrontation and collaboration. It can be sexual, at least superficially so. (Athletics and sex are contradictory.) In filmmaking terms, volleyball is cheap; all you need is a talented visual eye, some `athletic' cameramen and corresponding equipment and a clued in editor.

So why haven't we seen for volleyball something as exciting as `Blue Crush,' which was far more challenging logistically?

How would you approach this? Supposing you kept exactly the same script and actors, you might try adding two types of shots:

--As it is, the contest itself has no identity beyond showing the scoreboard. But remember how in `Hoosiers' and `Cool Runnings' the contest itself was developed as a character? Remember how in `Slap Shot' and the first `Rollerball' the contest was as much with this character as with the opponents? So we'd need some shots that do this by assembling visions of all the mechanisms which define the contest: the ads, the promoters, and (in sweet self-reference) the TeeVee industry. mise-en-scene.

--Far more challenging is to solve the problem of the eye at least as well as Scorsese did with `Bull,' something he borrowed from `Red Shoes.' We'd need two perspectives: one placed in the court and shifting between points of view and moving shots of the dynamics of the two players' strategic placement. After all, the idea is high speed chess to get the other folks where they do not want to be and exploit it. Unless we see the space, we can't relate to the game. The other type of shot is the ball, similarly ranging from on the ball (as a player of sorts) to dynamically tracking its trajectory. After all, the ball is incredibly fickle in whose side it is on, and this can exploited visually. I think a lot of this can more cheaply be done with a computer. Lots of slow motion of differing speeds. Some `matrix-like' freezed rotations.

A ripe opportunity. Who will try it after the box office success of `Blue Crush.'

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 4: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.