Second String

2002 "She believed in him. Now he must believe in himself to lead the team to the Super Bowl."
Second String
5.8| 1h40m| en| More Info
Released: 18 December 2002 Released
Producted By: Turner Network Television
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Synopsis

American football coach Chuck Dichter has worked wonders with the Buffalo Bills, and is even confident to crown his career with a Super Bowl victory, but before the play-offs an oyster food-poisoning wipes out his first team for a month. Dan Heller, an insurance salesman and former college quarterback, who was hired -relactantly, but his wife twisted his arm- just for practice, now has to captain and train a bunch of rookies and old-timers against the hardest adversaries. Dichter decides to sign up triple Super Bowl-winner Tommy Baker in Dan's place...

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loudbike One of the better "underdog" sports movies. Voigt is strong and believable. Bellows is good but as others noted, T Polo's character is shallow and forgettable, like her contrived performance (her lines are strained) G Eads is better here than on CSI and he gets big points for making the viewers dislike him. Even though its predictable, this is much better than "The Replacements" and other films with this premise. Worth watching? you bet.
seriouslypeople (SPOILERS) This movie was watchable, but not very good. My main problem with the film was the uncanny resemblance to the movie "The Replacements," starring Gene Hackman et al. This becomes most apparent in the final game, the Super Bowl. Every aspect of the game mirrors the final game in "The Replacements."They even ripped off the whole plot involving a hotshot QB being brought in to win big game, but not listening to the coach. Even some of the dialogue as this QB complains about the second stringers is almost exactly the same. Oh, and the ending (SPOILER) is the same as well. The hotshot QB is sent walking, and replacement player Bellows comes in and brings his team back from the brink of failure to win. Big surprise there. My advice? Rent "The Replacements." Much better.
DumontFan In the year 2000 (keep in mind, this is two years ago, not four), two men had the motivation to create the most miraculous piece of art on this side of the Mississippi.Thanks to Jere Cunningham and Tom Flynn, the world can now enjoy Second String, a delicious TV movie depicting a tale of a rag-tag gang of second stringers (thus the title) who are thrust into the position of starters due to an order of bad oysters.Because of the motivational direction of both the director Robert Lieberman and the Buffalo Bills' last minute QB, Dan "Give 'em hell" Heller (portrayed by Canadian actor, Gil Bellows) the oft Super Bowl snake-bitten Bills find themselves in the ultimate position.With an intriguing mix of internal and external conflict, a love story, comraderie that only the fine sport of football can bring, and an overall theory that the underdog can compete, Second String is an excellent movie worthy of viewing every possible moment that it appears on TNT.The only thing potentially bad about this production is the spelling of the Costume Designer's first name, Jenifur Jarvis.
gluserty i'm not a bills fan, but this fact did not cloud my judgement. it's just a bad movie. why is it bad? totally unrealistic. first off, the movie started off in the playoffs, that's too short a time. the next thing is referring to the last two games in this movie, the afc championship game and the super bowl. in both games the bills are down 21-0 and win. i know that's not impossible, but here what is: the touchdowns scored by the bills offense. an offensive tackle on a REVERSE throwing a PASS? huh? except for the punt return that won the first game(unlikely in the way that happened too) all the bills scores looked stupid. then there's the old footage of the real nfl throughout the movie. on one clip i saw andre reed, #83, on the field before a game. if you're not going to have the real players in this game, don't show the footage. it ruins the atmosphere of the film. oh, yeah, look at randy moss and terrance shaw of the vikings walk out of the tunnel before the super bowl, then five minutes later see cris cater on the sideline. also, for a super bowl that is played in new orleans, it looked like the h h h metrodome. the one plus was the actual actors acted well. it's just that this movie had too many holes in it. c'mon, the bills and vikings in the super bowl? why, so two super bowl bum win one? please. i also wish they would have mentioned the year this stuper season was taking place in. andre reed hasn't played for the bills since '99, so i'll say '99. doug flutie was ok, gil bellows was cool, jon voight did good(but why is he in this turkey?) but this movie is awful