Stocked with basketball legends like Bob Cousy (as the school’s athletic director), Bobby Knight and Larry Bird, directed with frenetic realism and peppered with Shelton’s wit, “Blue Chips” is a fast-break, PG-13 entertainment that makes up in energy what it lacks in subtlety. Succumbing to last-minute sermonizing, Shelton gets coach Bell out of his jam as abruptly as he gets him into it (plotting is not Shelton’s forte). The cliche villain, a rich alumnus (J. T. Walsh), would twirl his mustache if he had one. But the film’s passion for the game – and Nolte’s rabid commitment – are contagious. Anyone sick of the Go-for-It “Rocky” philosophy will warm to a tale that suggests winning isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
