It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

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.

Advertised as a sexy comedy about pro-football players and their women, this Michael Ritchie film, based on the book by Dan Jenkins, instead takes aim at fads and other eccentricities of the 1970s, using the sports world as a backdrop. It wasn't the big commercial hit some were predicting, though it garnered good notices for Burt Reynolds, doing another of his amiable walk-throughs. Jill Clayburgh, just prior to her breakthrough in "An Unmarried Woman", plays the daughter of the football team's owner, and her rapport with Reynolds is surprisingly instantaneous. Kris Kristofferson, on the other hand, ends up playing straight man to her and pal Reynolds, and the third-wheel position subdues low-keyed Kristofferson even further (he evaporates). There are some funny potshots at the EST craze, with Bert Convy well-cast as a self-help guru, but the romantic comedy at the heart of the piece never quite takes off. Ritchie puts all his sting into the absurdities happening around the principals, a move which consequently leaves the finale seeming half-baked. ** from ****

Lively satire that demolishes pro football and self improvement ads. The three stars work quite well together as a platonic menage a trois. The film also features Carl Weathers, Brian Dennehy and Robert Preston.