Taglines: If you’re going to win at any cost, be prepared to pay the price.
Blue Chips movie storyline. Pete Bell (Nick Nolte), a college basketball coach for the fictional Western University Dolphins in Los Angeles, is under a lot of pressure. His team isn’t winning as often as it once did and his successful program needs to attract new star players and fast. But the brightest stars of the future — the so-called “blue-chip” prospects — are secretly being paid by other schools.
This practice is forbidden in the college game, but Pete is desperate after a losing season. A school booster, greedy “friend of the program” Happy (J.T. Walsh), will stop at nothing to land these star high school players for Western’s next season and gets the OK from the coach to do so. This includes giving a Lexus to the gigantic Neon Boudeaux (O’Neal), a house and job to the mother of Butch McRae (Hardaway) and a tractor to the father of farmboy Ricky Roe (Matt Nover), as well as a bag filled with cash.
With sportswriter Ed (Ed O’Neill) suspecting a scandal, Pete continues to be contaminated by selfish demands from the players and a dirty association with the booster. His estranged wife (Mary McDonnell), a former guidance counselor, agrees to tutor Neon, who has below average grades, but she feels betrayed when Pete lies to her about the new athletes receiving illegal inducements to attend the school.
Blue Chips is a 1994 basketball drama film, directed by William Friedkin, written by Ron Shelton and starring Nick Nolte as a college coach and real-life basketball stars Shaquille O’Neal and Anfernee “Penny” Hardaway as talented finds. It features cameos from noted basketball figures Bob Knight, Rick Pitino, Nolan Richardson, Bob Cousy, Larry Bird, Jerry Tarkanian, Matt Painter, Allan Houston, Dick Vitale, Jim Boeheim, Dan Dakich and Bobby Hurley, as well as actor Louis Gossett, Jr.
Blue Chips (1994)
Directed by: William Friedkin
Starring: Nick Nolte, Mary McDonnell, J.T. Walsh, Ed O’Neill, Alfre Woodard, Shaquille O’Neal, Anfernee ‘Penny’ Hardaway, Bob Cousy, Matt Nover, Anthony C. Hall
Screenplay by: Ron Shelton
Production Design by: James D. Bissell
Cinematography by: Tom Priestley Jr.
Film Editing by: Robert K. Lambert, David Rosenbloom
Costume Design by: Bernie Pollack
Set Decoration by: Thomas L. Roysden
Art Direction by: Ed Verreaux
Music by: Jeff Beck, Jed Leiber, Nile Rodgers
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for language.
Distributed by: Paramount Pictures
Release Date: February 18, 1994
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