It's a good thing -- and maybe not a coincidence -- that ESPN neglected to send author John Feinstein a ticket to a recent premiere of "A Season on the Brink," the TV movie based on Feinstein's 1986 book about Indiana University basketball coach Bobby Knight. Feinstein, who parlayed his observation of Knight's 1985-86 season into arguably one of the finest pieces of sports journalism ever written, has made no secret of his contempt for ESPN's adaptation of his material. "I'm not sure the people from ESPN ever read the book," an annoyed Feinstein told me.
Feinstein justifiably is angered about the handling of his book's details, many of which the movie gets wrong. Of course, viewers who tune in to ESPN's version probably won't be watching with a highlighted copy of the original text in hand. But they may well be angry all the same -- because "A Season on the Brink," fictionalized or not, is a profoundly and unapologetically mediocre movie. Watching it, one gets the feeling that the filmmakers barely broke a sweat.
That's a shame, because ESPN's (and Feinstein's) subject is one of the most enigmatic, complex men ever to grace the landscape of American sports. "A Season on the Brink" chronicles the season that followed Knight's most disappointing year as a head coach. In addition to compiling a losing record in 1984-85, Knight cemented his reputation as the poster child for misbehaving coaches by throwing a chair onto the court during a game. That incident -- and the miserable season it defined -- brought Knight to "the brink." By joining Knight for the 1985-86 season, Feinstein sought to chronicle whether America's most controversial coach could pull himself back from a precipice of his own making.
The normally terrific Brian Dennehy plays Knight, and it's neither a realistic nor an enjoyable sight. Looking very little like Knight himself, Dennehy stomps around the screen screaming "fuck" and "pussy" with abandon. It's not an inaccurate portrayal so much as a bland one. Though the script is in many cases taken directly from Feinstein's quotes, Dennehy's performance has the weird effect of making the material feel less outrageous than it actually is. In one scene, Dennehy ends a tirade by yelling, "Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Theoretically at least, this should be tremendous fun to watch. But in ESPN's hands, it's boring, boring, boring.
The rest of the cast consists largely of either basketball players or actors -- you can't really tell, because none of them seem to be particularly good at either pursuit. James Lafferty plays Steve Alford, Indiana's star guard, with the wide-eyed stare of a deer caught in the headlights. (In 15 years, he'll be a lock to play the lead in ESPN's "The Neil O'Donnell Story.") Lafferty makes a poor object for Dennehy's wrath because he never appears angry, or hurt, or passionate -- or anything. ESPN's portrayal of the other players isn't much more convincing. At one point, Dennehy exhorts his team to practice by yelling, "A little sweat wouldn't hurt!" -- which is unintentionally funny, because the player-actors who populate the film's background never appear to be sweating.
It's not that "A Season on the Brink" is particularly awful -- it isn't. The storytelling is competent (though fans of the book will be alarmed to see that the movie inexplicably ends before Indiana's first-round NCAA Tournament loss to Cleveland State) and for a TV movie it's decently put together. The problem is that the film's banality -- it sets the tone with a corny opening metaphor of a storm-blown wave crashing violently on a beach -- saps the intrigue from what should have been a gripping profile of a man teetering on the verge of lunacy.
ESPN blankly aims for the obvious and simple question -- Is Bobby Knight good or bad? -- rather than re-creating the richly complex character of Feinstein's book and letting viewers come up with their own answers. In half the scenes, Knight deploys a barrage of profanity at his players; in the other half, he does things like charm an audience with self-deprecating wit. We see mock-documentary interviews with "average" Indiana residents praising Knight; we also see mock-documentary interviews with a professor who dislikes him. This contradiction-obsessed dichotomization consumes the film, and hobbles it beyond repair.
Circa 1986, the general take on Bobby Knight was that he was a brilliant coach who happened to have trouble controlling his temper. Today, the general take is that he's a near-criminal who happens to have a talent for teaching basketball. But ESPN's "A Season on the Brink" doesn't help us get any closer to resolving which perception is closer to the truth -- mostly because ESPN's Knight doesn't come off as particularly brilliant or particularly scary; he more or less just comes off as plastic. The film's failings are never more obvious than during the closing credits, which feature extended documentary-style footage of Bobby Knight in action. And boy, is it a relief -- because the real Knight is a hilarious comedian, a self-centered egomaniac, a brilliant basketball mind, a purveyor of vaguely depraved values, an articulate debater, a self-styled tough, a passionate educator, and, above all, an unrepentant, unreformed, and undiluted asshole. Now that's contradiction.
