Retains enough of the original novel's authenticity to deliver strong, if brutish, entertainment.
Comment
08/01/08
North Dallas Forty (1979)
86 %
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted: 21
Fresh: 18
Rotten:3
Average Rating: 6.7/10
Consensus: Muddled overall, but perceptive and brutally realistic, North Dallas Forty also benefits from strong performances by Nick Nolte and Charles Durning. Football fans will likely find it fascinating.
Runtime: 1 hr 59 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: NORTH DALLAS FORTY is a funny and insightful peek into the world of professional football, adapted from Peter Gent's novel. Phillip Elliott is an aging wide receiver for the North Dallas Bulls who still delivers on the field--despite the... [More]
Starring: Nick Nolte, Charles Durning, Bo Svenson, Mac Davis
Director: Ted Kotcheff
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Reviews for North Dallas Forty
Top Critic The football scenes are brutally real; the locker room scenes are totally authentic.
03/21/07
Top Critic Pro football fans may be disillusioned by this excellent, honest, and often brutal expose of the play-for-pay game.
03/14/07
Top Critic The production is a most realistic, hard-hitting and perceptive look at the seamy side of pro football.
03/14/07
Top Critic
It relies upon your belief in the inherent nobility of the sport... If you believe that, this is the greatest sports movie ever made. If you don't, it's a wallow in self-pity.
03/14/07
Top Critic Something of a mess, both in terms of the wayward plot which rambles all over the place, and in terms of the rather muddled juggling of audience sympathies.
01/26/06
The leading man, Nick Nolte, has a physical authority and a clowning, irreverent manner that lend the film some semblance of continuity, even when it's about to flounder.
05/09/05
Top Critic
North Dallas Forty reveals some of the reasons why the fun has been taken out of football.
01/27/04
It’s still fascinating to get a glimpse of what athletes sacrifice to entertain us. It would have been considerably more fascinating if more of the people involved had seemed more human.
03/27/01
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