Plot
Jack Dundee is a banker obsessed with what he considers the most shameful moment in his life: dropping a perfectly thrown pass in the final seconds of the 1972 high school football game between Taft and their arch rivals, Bakersfield, that ended in a scoreless tie.
Since that game, Jack has found it impossible to forget what happened. He works for his father-in-law, the Colonel, Bakersfield's biggest supporter, and who reminds him of it almost daily.
Thirteen years later, Reno Hightower, quarterback of the fateful game, is a financially struggling van specialist in debted to Jack's bank. His wife, Gigi, leaves him yet again, citing their rut as the reason. She dreams of going to Los Angeles to get discovered.
Using an odd-sounding engine as an excuse to visit Reno's garage so that he can give it a temporary fix, Jack borrows an old car to visit a "massage expert" on the edge of town. Darla listens while he laments that game, which he is convinced hangs over him like a dark cloud. She suggests that he replay the game.
Jack approaches the Colonel to propose the rematch, and he accepts on Bakersfield's behalf. At home, his wife, Elly, tries to use emotional blackmail by depriving him of sex to persuade him to give up his plan to redo the game. It does not work, so he moves into a motel.
Because Reno is the greatest quarterback in the history of South Kern County, and the only one to wear white shoes, Jack tries to get him on board. At first, resistant, Jack convinces him by helping him to reorganize his late mortgages. Reno and Jack approach the local Caribou Lodge, who initially resist the idea, too.
Disguised as the Bakersfield mascot tiger, Jack goes through town defacing property and landmarks with tiger orange, writing taunting messages. At the lodge, they incite and convince supporters to restage the game.
Jack's and Reno's wives invite them to dinner Monday night at Jack's, under the condition that neither sex nor football comes up. They struggle to find things to talk about, but are managing, until Jack gets caught watching the game on TV and the men are kicked out.
The Taft Rockets are losing, 0-26, by the end of the first half of the Taft-Bakersfield rematch game, so Jack enrages Reno by "accidentally" letting him know that it was him who incited the town dressed as the other team's mascot. His meanness returns, spurring the team to catch up, little by little. Reno returns Jack to the game at the last minute.
In the last play of the game, with five seconds left, Reno throws the ball long to Jack for the winning touchdown. In the process, it revitalizes Taft, as well as his and Reno's marriages.
Reception
Walter Goodman of The New York Times drew attention to the "constrained" plot and uneven script, but was complimentary of Williams's "amiable performance", and relished the rousing ending that "leaves you with the sort of sappy happy feeling that Frank Capra and Preston Sturges used to provide".[3]
In the Los Angeles Times, Michael Wilmington gave special praise to the co-stars, Williams and Russell, who he described as "maybe the best thing" about the movie, and excused the "excesses and flaws" of the script. Calling the film "a lip-smacking tale of all-American wish-fulfillment and a witty satire of its dangers", he commended scenarist, Ron Shelton, as having "a wickedly tight grip on the absurdities and dynamics of small American cities".[4]
The film has received mixed reviews since its release, with a 29% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 14 reviews.[5] On Metacritic, it has a score of 57%, based on reviews from 11 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[6] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade of "B+", on a scale of A+ to F.[7]
Pauline Kael of The New Yorker called the film "a small town comedy where the whole population is caught up in some glorious foolishness".[8]
Scott Weinberg of eFilmCritic.com wrote, "Forgotten by most yet seemingly adored by those who choose to remember it, The Best of Times stands in my book as one of the truly great sports comedies."[9]
