There is no movie that stereotypes and portrays college football players in a usual rhetoric way than "The Program". As a former college football player, I was offended by the way they showed the dumb jock mentality and put it onto film. The football coaching scenes were also terrible and totally unrealistic. Assistant coaches standing around talking about a potential Heisman Trophy winner and not teaching fundamentals? Terrible, terrible film.

Most of the reviews are 10 and tell of a 'true' telling of life in a college football school, the ups and downs and twists and turns etc etc.... What a waste of time this movie was, the whole point is to try to portray the players as 'poor little men' trying their gosh darn dangest to succeed on the field of battle in football. What a joke. All the players are portrayed as the most ignorant, stupidest ape mentality with a full blown paid scholarship, that they seem to misuse to their advantage at every detail. Watching the woman in the film swoon over these neanderthals is comical, why on earth would any human want any contact with these insensitive, crude, drunk boors is beyond me.The acting itself is pretty low, the script poor and the plot can figured out in about a minute into the film. Now mind you, if this is what 'true' college athletes are like, please write your congressmen and other representatives to fully remove all sports from the college level because they appear be the worst scum of society ever....

This movie was nothing short of shocking when it came out in 1993. The average person had a hard time believing the things depicted were based on actual accounts in colleges across the country. It wasn't until 20/20 reminded people of various scandals in college football (the 77-87 SMU mustangs are the perfect example of this movie) that the American public saw just how far players and schools will go to win.I still look at this movie with some sadness. You see how a player is treated with kid gloves when they are All-Americans, and when they are injured permanently and are of no use to the team, they are chewed up and spit out and quickly forgotten. Some ask for it, while others fall victims to their universities demands to push it to the limit and beyond!All in all, this is a very entertaining movie.

You do not have to be a great fan of college football to appreciate this film but I suspect watching it might offer you a change to become a fan. Visually, the movie is quite lovely. It has a lush warm tone that is unaffected but effective.I like this film. I like the story. I like the way the film is executed. I find the story and characters credible and interesting. The contrast of themes or counterpoint of themes works well. The then young actors seem realistic. They are multidimensional. In fact, this is one of the best football movies.Dialogue is playful intelligent, and perceptive. The film uses multiple points-of-view and varies them in interesting ways. There are subjective reaction shots and asides that give the narrative great interest. I love the helmet camera images.