Saved by the Bell: Not Another Harvard Athletics Movie!

This isn’t exactly a movie review. The Crimson has another section that takes care of that sort of thing. I am neither Ebert, nor Siskel (may he rest in piece), nor Michelle F. Kung ’03.

However, James Toback’s ’66 Harvard Man is, as far as I’m concerned, more than just the cinematic event of the year. Forget last fall’s football season, forget the pending MAC renovation and forget the return of the women’s hockey Olympians to Bright Ice next winter. Harvard Man is the biggest thing to hit Crimson sports this century.

This is not because it is moving. It is not because it is well-done. And it is certainly not because it’s a dead-on representation of the Harvard sporting life.

What Harvard Man is is hilarious.

In the movie, a starting varsity point guard and apparent Adams House resident (Adrian Greiner) gets involved with gamblers, LSD and the Hottest Holy Cross Cheerleader In Recorded History (Sarah Michelle Gellar). Somehow, the latter item only makes the first two worse, and Greiner—a philosophy concentrator who sleeps with one of his professors and whose rantings about existentialism pepper the film with more unintentional comedy than a Celebrity Boxing marathon—finds his life spinning out of control.

From a sports standpoint, Toback makes a number of interesting moves. Toback employed former WHRB broadcasters Chris Wolfe ’01 and Brian Schulz ’01, adding a nice degree of authenticity—even though Schulz and Wolfe were the hockey voices of the Crimson, and usually a touch more out of breath. Greiner’s play calls to mind aspects of Drew Gellert—on a very bad day, perhaps, but Gellert nonetheless. Admirably, the Harvard uniforms worn by Greiner and his teammate, played by NBA All-Star Ray Allen, are the real deal, and the gym is an admirable attempt at reproducing Lavietes Pavilion’s stands.

Allen himself is, conceptually, the funniest thing about the movie. His utterance of the line, “Girls and winning, that’s why I play Harvard basketball,” is one of the more side-splitting lines of all-time. The scene in which he holds a gun to Greiner’s head once he (correctly) suspects his teammate has been throwing games? Also priceless.

And it’s all true, right? Is there anything the least bit inaccurate about Harvard Man’s depiction of the DHA life?

“Everything,” said junior Brady Merchant, basketball team captain-elect, when I asked him yesterday afternoon. He had just seen the movie at the Brattle Theater.

“Pick any aspect of it, there’s nothing true about the Harvard basketball player... Besides the women and the drugs, the time commitment it takes isn’t in there at all.”

That and Ray Allen.

“He would kind of help us out,” Merchant said.

So, Harvard Man’s representation of the Lavietes life is about as realistic as How High’s depiction of the crew team. (If you didn’t see How High, you should—the video’s hitting stores tomorrow, and Redman’s stint on the crew team alone is worth the rental price).

Apparently, real Harvard athletes don’t have the time to singlehandedly foil FBI sting operations, fly out to Kansas every other day and drop copious amounts of acid. And the opening scene—in which Greiner shows up late for a game due to a romp in the hay with Sarah Michelle, only to promptly be inserted into the lineup—probably wouldn’t go over very well with Harvard Coach Frank Sullivan or real Harvard teammates.

My only question is this: Why stop with Harvard athletes? Even agents have been immortalized in absurd movies and HBO appearances. There’s a lot of money to be made in a dramatized account of a college sportswriter’s already-thrilling existence.

Mr. Toback, if you’re reading, here’s the basic sketch I’ve outlined for Crimson Man. Martin Bell (played by Martin Bell) is a senior who writes sports for the Crimson. He lives a charmed life—dates another sportswriter (Tyra Banks, in her best role since Coyote Ugly) and occasionally works on his thesis. But he finds himself on the wrong side of the law when a Harvard athlete’s father and known gangster (The Sopranos’ James Gandolfini) threatens to kill him unless his son (James Franco, Spider-Man) is named The Crimson’s Athlete of the Week every week. Martin finds this tough to pull off, especially since the player in question—a punter on the football team—has been injured all season and was marginal prior to that. As the weeks and accolades go by, the stakes are raised, and the Crimson’s editorial staff (Harold Ramis, Dustin Diamond, Luis Guzman) grows increasingly annoyed and confused.

Where does this go? I don’t know. But it involves a lot of Tyra and me. And car chases—I like car chases.

Mr. Toback—James—you’re sitting on a gold mine here. Have your people call my people—and by my people, I mean me. I’m in the directory.

Let’s do lunch.