* (out of four)
Told that he’s suddenly gone blind after a poorly diagnosed and treated eye infection, high-school football star Travis Freeman (32-year-old Mark Hapka) asks, “What do you mean I’m blind?” Replies his father (Dylan Baker): “You lost your eyesight.”
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Considering the situation, this, of course, isn’t meant to be funny. But it’s hilarious in the inept hands of veteran actor and first-time director Baker (“Happiness”), who turns a true story into a momentum-free, accidental comedy that makes both football and serious injury excruciatingly boring.
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Never do we understand the adaptations made in Travis’ house or his life (Braille, maybe?) to deal with his lack of vision, other than a cane. We do see him spend the entire season in the hospital, because apparently blindness needs months-long monitoring. Occasionally Ashley (Alexa PenaVega) appears to get all misty around Travis. His long-time friend and teammate Jerry (30-year-old co-writer Bram Hoover) eventually goes from goofball quarterback who asks “Where’s the party tonight?” in the huddle to a second-string booze-hound who the film doesn’t actually care about, based on the way the onscreen text insultingly brushes him aside—after culminating in a big game, as if that’s what’s most important.
Much worse than the recent “When the Game Stands Tall,” the Kentucky-set “23 Blast” is the kind of football movie filled with coaches taking off their hats in disgust and a dad bellowing, “My boy has to play!” It’s the kind of faith-driven movie in which that issue is addressed entirely by whether Travis decides to wear a cross around his neck. Timothy Busfield co-stars as a hillbilly athletic director who mutters “J-j-jail?” when threatened with a lawsuit, and at no point does the movie make the true story’s most eyebrow-raising detail—that Travis rejoined the team without his sight—remotely believable. Hapka also doesn’t have the same build as the real person he’s playing, making what happens to his character seem even less sensible.
“Left Behind” remains the year’s most unintentionally hilarious movie by a long shot, and the badly acted “23 Blast” (which might have made an OK documentary) is too dull to recommend for its accidental bursts of laughter. But here’s another great moment: “Play? Play what?” Travis asks when coach (Stephen Lang of “Avatar”) says he wants the young man to play again. Says coach: “Football.”
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Category: WHO
