Bovie Movie

Paul Blake is a 34-year-old farmer who was once a star high-school football player, one of the best quarterbacks in Texas. Paul was forced to drop out of sight when his father died, leaving Paul with the family farm to run. Now, after a 16-year absence, he’s lured back to football by his former coach, Wally “Rig” Riggendorf. Rig has recently been hired as assistant coach to head coach Ed Gennero, who has been hired by Texas State University to turn around the Texas State Armadillos — a team that was placed on probation for corruption, and university president Carver Purcell wants results as soon as possible. The team that Gennero and Rig assemble includes a military fanatic who admires General Schwarzkopf, a physics instructor, a swift martial-arts champ named Eric “Samorai” Hansen, Andre Krimm, and a female kicker named Lucy Draper. On the field, Paul does his best to get himself back into shape, while he has to overcome the awkwardness he feels about attending college classes at his age. And Paul finds himself attracted to journalism professor Suzanne Carter. Paul, Gennero, also have to deal with Dean Phillip Elias, who wants to scrap the university’s football program, and the Armadillos are out to beat the almost impossible odds of winning at least one game this season.

Noted theater director Sam Mendes, who was responsible for the acclaimed 1998 revival of Cabaret and Nicole Kidman’s turn in The Blue Room, made his motion picture debut with this film about the dark side of an American family, and about the nature and price of beauty in a culture obsessed with outward appearances. Kevin Spacey plays Lester Burnham, a man in his mid-40s going through an intense midlife crisis; he’s grown cynical and is convinced that he has no reason to go on. Lester’s relationship with his wife Carolyn (Annette Bening) is not a warm one; while on the surface Carolyn strives to present the image that she’s in full control of her life, inside she feels empty and desperate. Their teenage daughter Jane (Thora Birch) is constantly depressed, lacking in self-esteem, and convinced that she’s unattractive. Her problems aren’t helped by her best friend Angela (Mena Suvari), an aspiring model who is quite beautiful and believes that that alone makes her a worthwhile person. Jane isn’t the only one who has noticed that Angela is attractive: Lester has fallen into uncontrollable lust for her, and she becomes part of his drastic plan to change his body and change his life. Meanwhile, next door, Colonel Fitts (Chris Cooper) has spent a lifetime in the Marine Corps and can understand and tolerate no other way of life, which makes life difficult for his son Ricky (Wes Bentley), an aspiring filmmaker and part-time drug dealer who is obsessed with beauty, wherever and whatever it may be. American Beauty was also the screen debut for screenwriter Alan Ball.