Semi-Tough (1977)

Brilliant and touching

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

Burt Reynolds and Kris Kristofferson team up to play a pair of amiable pro-football players in Semi-Tough a good natured comedy about these two and the owner'd daughter. Sounds like you should be waiting for punchline and in a sense the whole film is one.Jill Clayburgh is the owner's daughter, the owner being Robert Preston who is a flamboyant Texas millionaire and owner of the Dallas football team which for copyright reasons is never referred to as the Cowboys.Having grown up with the team Clayburgh is on a first name basis with all the players and they treat her with due deference. She'd like a little more going with either Reynolds or Kristofferson, but can't make her mind up which one. It's almost like Crosby/Hope/Lamour without any songs.Some nice performances will be found from masseuse Lotte Lenya, fake motivational speaker Bert Convy, and also the best from Brian Dennehy as a defensive end who's really abusing the steroids. It's from Dennehy that we get some potentially serious moments in an easy going film.Fans of the leads should appreciate Semi-Tough.

Rascally Billy Clyde Puckett (a fine and engaging performance by Burt Reynolds) and laid-back Marvin "Shake" Tiller (a supremely amiable portrayal by Kris Kristofferson) are a couple of professional football players who are involved in an offbeat (and platonic!) menage a trois relationship with the sassy Barbara Jane Bookman (splendidly played with spunky aplomb by Jill Clayburgh). Complications ensue when Shake decides to marry Barbara Jane and Billy Clyde realizes he truly loves her. Director Michael Ritchie, adapting a sharp and biting script by Walter Bernstein and Ring Lardner, Jr., pokes wickedly spot-on fun at silly 70's self-help programs and the quintessential all-American emphasis on winning while showing a genuine warmth and affection for his three endearingly flaky main characters. Reynold, Kristofferson, and Clayburgh all do sterling work in their roles, with excellent support from Robert Preston as irascible, eccentric good ol' boy owner Big Ed Bookman, Bert Convy as smarmy, pretentious self-help guru Friedrich Bismark, Roger E. Mosley as the hip Puddin Patterson, Sr., Brian Dennehy as the rowdy T.J. Lambert, and Carl Weathers as fearsome rival team captain Dreamer Tatum. The dialogue is often snappy and profane; the banter between the three leads in particular is quite funny and delightful. Comic highlights include Shake doing a deodorant TV commercial, Billy Clyde visiting a brutal physical therapist (Lotte Lenya in an inspired cameo), a protracted forty-eight hour self-help seminar, and a climactic wedding which degenerates into a wild brawl. Charles Rosher, Jr.'s polished cinematography gives the film an attractive sunny look. Jerry Fielding's lively, tuneful score likewise does the trick. Gene Autry's country songs on the soundtrack further enhance the movie's considerable quirky charm. A nice film.

This was "based" on a very funny book, one of the most enjoyable I have ever read. But as other reviewers have said, the producers gutted the story and replaced it with something utterly different. Didn't work for me, at all. And I usually liked Burt Reynolds and Jill Clayburgh, and didn't mind Kris Kristofferson in a couple of other movies.

I loved the book, but failed to heed warnings to steer clear of the film. The script is hackneyed. Reynolds, as Billy Clyde Puckett, gives his usual smirking performance, while Kristoffersen devil-may-care mien of his character, split end 'Shake' Tiller, and Dennehy adequate captures the man-child, T.J. Lambert. However, the script does little justice to Clayburgh's character, Barbara Jane, who was the best developed and most interesting character in Jenkins' novel.