Chiklis tackles adversity in grid drama, ‘The Senior’
The tale depicted in “The Senior” is so preposterous that you’d never buy it if it weren’t based on a true story. A 59-year-old construction worker returning to college to not only complete his degree, but to play football with teammates 40 years his junior? Impossible! Even more unlikely is finding an actor talented enough and fit enough to sell it to skeptical audiences.
But Michael Chiklis is more than up for the challenge, summoning his finest work since playing lawless cop Vic Mackey on “The Shield.” Like that Emmy-winning role, portraying stocky Texan Mike Flynt required a lot of pent-up anger and toxic male masculinity, a persona Chiklis could no doubt project in his sleep. What’s surprising is how much heart he infuses into a macho man that one observant teammate labels a geriatric Rudy Ruettiger.
That description not only fits Mike Flynt, it also perfectly illustrates “The Senior,” which wisely follows the same inspirational beats as the 1993 classic about an overachiever outsmarting the odds. And while West Texas’s tiny Sul Ross State University obviously lacks the prestige of Notre Dame, it suits the film’s air of intimacy and understatement. Director Rod Lurie (“The Candidate”) wisely maintains that vibe by creating a picture that thrives on its small moments, many of them acted out beautifully by Chiklis and Mary Stuart Masterson as Mike’s straight-shooting wife, Eileen.
The two are endearingly believable as a couple that’s been through many a battle. It’s a marriage that, while loving, has begun showing the strain from Mike’s propensity for getting into physical altercations with strangers over trivial matters. In fact, it was that uncontrollable temper that got Mike expelled from Sul Ross all those many years ago. The source of that fury, revealed over the course of the telling, is an abusive upbringing by a father (James Badge Dale) who taught him that fists are more effective than words.
The irony is that while Mike’s pugnacity has caused rifts in his personal life, it’s served him well on the gridiron, as evidenced in flashbacks to his glory days in the late 1960s. Played in an excellent bit of casting by Chiklis look-alike Shawn Patrick Clifford, his younger self is a regular Dick Butkus, a gentle giant off the field and a monstrous fiend on it. You attribute this to roid rage, but whatever fuels that turmoil, it’s followed him all through the years, driving a wedge between him and his adult son, Micah (Brandon Flynn), who, for the most part, shares his mother’s temperament, but like his dad, can’t let things go.
If there’s a weakness in Robert Eisele’s screenplay, it’s in the execution of the fraught father-son relationship, which lacks the authenticity necessary to genuinely move us. It feels too much like a plot device designed to pay off after the inevitable “big game” magically bridges the divide. Far more intriguing are the relationships Mike forges with his teammates, who go from ribbing him on his advanced age (they dig rap beats, he grooves to “Rubberband Man”) to deriving inspiration from his refusal to back down from any challenge.
There’s a clear sense that the script gods strategically ordained that Mike’s three best buds on the squad, Jeremy (Corey Knight), Jamal (Terayle Hill) and Fernie (Chris Becerra), be of color, and his in-house enemy, the hulking lineman, Randy (Lance Allen Kramer), be white. But whatever the intent, you go with it because the actors do such a fine job selling the kinship. I also appreciate that the racial differences are never alluded to; they are just simply accepted.
Where “The Senior” earns its bona fides is with Chiklis’s ability to make us feel vested in Mike’s quest to banish the demons that have plagued him for far too long. You can’t help being impressed by Mike’s determination to prevail, even as the journey begins, capturing the attention of the likes of CNN and Fox News. I especially admired the subtle bond that forms between Mike and his coach, Sam Weston, played on the serious side by Chiklis’s fellow Bostonian, comedian Rob Corddry. He’s excellent.
For the most part, so is the movie. Even its nonsecular undertones, which surface when Mike discovers his late father’s Bible and its inscription, are handled unobtrusively. It’s in keeping with the mission statement of Angel, the faith-based studio that specializes in films like “The Senior” and last month’s excellent “Sketch.”
But the “faith” that matters most is the faith Mike eventually discovers in himself as a husband and a dad. You need not be religious to recognize and empathize with a man who has the tenacity to joust not just with fit, young athletes, but also with the more imposing specter of regret. And then realizing that the only way to vanquish it is to take stock in all that you do have and move on. It’s a life lesson “The Senior” conveys winningly.
Movie review
The Senior
Rated: PG
Cast: Michael Chiklis, Mary Stuart Masterson, Rob Corddry, Brandon Flynn, Corey Knight, Terayle Hill and Shawn Patrick Clifford
Director: Rod Lurie
Writer: Robert Eisele
Runtime: 99 minutes
Where: In theaters Sept. 19
Grade: B
