P&G and Wal-Mart are gearing up to launch the latest Family Movie Night film Game Time: Tackling the Past which premieres September 3 at 8/7c on NBC.

As a movie fan [and a sports fan] I can honestly say even before viewing the movie that I usually avoid these TV movies on network TV aimed for “family.” Usually they are sappy, cliched and more-or-less melodramatic. Which is fine but not my cup of tea. But while watching Game Time: Tackling the Past I was never bored, or annoyed while I was watching it. However, I was never that excited to watch it either. Really, that’s the trouble with these TV Family Night movies is they are aimed for a wide audience and have to cater to as many people as possible. It’s educational in the way that they are parables and instruct, in a entertaining way, decent and upright morals that each and every one of us should know and live by. This is what to expect in a Family Night TV movie. So why do so many fail? Well, most times its the subject matter/plot or could be the stiff acting or poor production quality. Game Time: Tackling the Past does NONE of these truly wrong.

Game Time is the story of Jake Walker, a pro football tight-end who, despite a knee ailment is nearing his career high and close to breaking a receiving record. He also is in the middle of a contract-renewal with his franchise team. When we first meet Jake he is cocky and self-assured and gives the impression he is playing for that record rather than his team. However, he also seems like a nice and cordial gentleman. In the midst of the contract negotiations he receives a call from his family that his high school football coach father [Beau Bridges] suffered a major heart attack. Jake’s brother, Dean, is the assistant coach of the same high school that their father coaches at as well as their Alma Mater.

Jake, being the pro-football star, has left their small town 15 years earlier and is somewhat estranged with his family. We see in small vague flashbacks that there has been some hard feelings or strong words expressed between both Dean and their father to Jake. However, Jake races home to be with his family in their moment of crisis. Jake’s agent fully understands his trouble but urges him to come home ASAP because of his impending contract renewal. While home Jake reconnects with an old high school sweetheart, Sarah, who is divorced and Jake bonds well with her young son, Sean. While waiting for his dad to recover and his contract renewal he meets his old high school’s current team now coached by Dean, while his father reluctantly retires due to the heart condition. Meanwhile, he utilizes the school’s gym and weight-lifting equipment, which happen to be the same old equipment he used as a student there. His mother, played very well by Catherine Hicks from Seventh Heaven, holds his family together in this crisis. She is also the guiding light to Jake in how the bad blood between his brother and father could be solved and cleared.

It turns out that Jake’s contract was not renewed after all by his team due to his knee issue and is forced to find a new team or a new career. Dean extends an invitation to his brother to be Offensive Coordinator/assistant coach for the high school team which Jake turns down. With the help of Sarah, who also teaches dance at the same school, Jake gives the football team a dance routine to aid them in coordination and poise to be better football players. This is the cliched sports training montage of the film and it’s a good excuse to show it’s lighter side as well as a chance for an inspirational pop song. Eventually, Jake does become coach, his dad gets better and the bad blood between everyone goes away. The big first game of the season is coming up and Jake gets the word that another team wants to sign him for a two-year contract. Just before the big game, Jake says goodbye to everyone but Sarah’s son, Sean, who races on his bike to say goodbye to Jake. Jake then realizes that his life is better off now in his old town with Sarah, Sean and his own family coaching high school football to continue the good outstanding legacy of his father. He turns down the professional contract because with his weak and troubled knee he would never be able to give that team 100% and would only coast by in conquest of his record.

A great aspect about this movie is that you don’t have to be a fan of football to enjoy it. They never get into technical stuff that could potentially confuse the audience. However if you like football it’s not dumbed-down either. All the characters are likeable and the only antagonist in the whole film is Dr. Tate, Sarah’s dad, who keeps hounding the Walker family to acquire ringers from neighboring towns to boost the teams odds of winning, mainly because other teams are doing it. Not much of a villain but almost every time you see Dr. Tate he is pushy or complaining about the state of the team. Even though Jake is shown to be arrogant and selfish, it turns out his good family values never went away as you continually see him doing the right thing or even greater deeds not expected from selfish people. In one segment Jake, buys the high school a whole new room of weigh equipment, not just because he needed better equipment himself while he waited at home but because he truly wanted to help the team. He is also racked with guilt about his brother’s leg injury from when they played high school football. Turns out the hard feelings with Jake and his dad was from this incident in which Jake, for his own glory, dismissed his father’s play and called his own which left his brother with a leg injury which halted Dean’s future football career. Dean however has no ill feelings for this incident as being a family man and a football coach is what truly makes him happy. In fact he pities Jake’s career as he sees it as selfish and not up to their father’s standard or values. In other words, he’s only playing football for himself and his record, not for the team.

Playing for the team is the main moral in this movie and I cannot disagree with this at all. As a father now myself I want to teach my kids that teamwork and selflessness are very important virtues to have and live by. Whether it’s your family, friends or football team, they need you as much as you need them and everyone strives when you give it your all to them. In one scene, Dean scolds Jake for telling the football team that playing for yourself is just as important if not more-so than the team. However a good thing to point out is this movie doesn’t ram this point home every 15 minutes like some TV movies have in the past. Using football [or any team sport] to get this point across is not uncommon but barely used effectively as seen in Game Time.

The acting in Game Time could have been worse. It’s not going to win any awards but for a TV-made movie it’s not abrasive either. Acting veterans like Beau Bridges and Catherine Hicks give the film the lift it needs. However the romantic subplot couldn’t be more cliched. It’s the usual boy-leaves-home, boy-returns-home, boy-reconnects-with-old-sweetheart routine and I could see what was going to unfold between them on autopilot. However kudos to the filmmakers who made her a divorcee AND had Sean out of wedlock in a very moralistic TV movie. That, I did not expect.

Like I stated earlier, Game Time: Tackling the Past wasn’t bad but neither was it great. It teetered on the fence of bringing anything new to the film world yet it was decently done enough to entertain in a very enlightened way for an American family watching it together. The mere fact that I never rolled my eyes or groaned at the screen is no small feat. I have literally turned off hundreds of movies simply because they are “unwatchable.” As a father I can honestly say I wouldn’t mind watching Game Time with my family.

So if you want a decently done and moralistic movie to watch with your family I urge you to see Game Time: Tackling the Past premiering Saturday, September 3 on NBC at 8pm ET/7pm CT.

http://www.familymovienight.com/game-time-tackling-the-past/

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I wrote this review while participating in a campaign by Dad Central Consulting on behalf of P&G and received a promotional item to thank me for taking the time to participate.