“I just want you to be my partner, I don’t want to pick out silver patterns.”

Drake’s rating: I got sand in my shorts

Drake’s review: I know the question burning in everyone’s mind right now, but fear not! I will give you the answer: A “side out” was, in 1990, a rule in volleyball that meant only the serving team could score the winning point. Boy, am I glad that’s cleared up.

Now, Mutant Reviewers have to know some obscure things. It’s just part of the job. We have to know the flight paths of unladen swallows, we have to know Mad Max’s last name, we even have to know what Fiona’s been up to when Scotty doesn’t. But knowing a now-obsolete rule in a sport watched by literally dozens of people is asking a bit much, so it would have been nice if the movie Side Out had explained just what the heck the title meant. I don’t think that’s too much to ask. Instead, thirty-three years after the film debuted in theaters (and then flopped its way into obscurity), I had to find the answer on Wikipedia. I have no idea how I would have learned such a triviality in 1990, though.

So we all know the plot here, right? We’ve seen it a dozen times. Plucky underdog sports team overcomes nigh-impossible odds and faces off against their rivals in the Big Game. We’ve seen it in almost every sports movie, from Slap Shot to Bad News Bears to Major League. Side Out, because it doesn’t have an original idea in its 100-minute runtime, slavishly follows that formula as Monroe (C. Thomas Howell, The Hitcher) becomes an unlikely volleyball star and eventually makes his way to the beach volleyball championship.

Following a proven formula in and of itself isn’t a bad idea. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior is nothing but a Western updated to include post-apocalyptic fashions, killer Mohawks, and insane car stunts — and it’s the best action movie ever made.* But when you copy a formula, it’s usually a good idea to have a hero worth rooting for.

Slap Shot’s Reggie Dunlop was a foul-mouthed con artist, but at least he was trying to keep his team together. Major League’s Jake Taylor was a foul-mouthed catcher with worn-out knees, but he took the younger players under his wing and wanted nothing more than for them to know some degree of success. The Bad News Bears’ Tanner Boyle was a foul-mouthed shortstop with a hair-trigger temper, but he’d fight anyone and everyone on behalf of a friend. Bring It On’s Torrance Shipman was not foul-mouthed, but then again Kirsten Dunst is ridiculously adorable so we’ll let that one slide.

Side Out’s Monroe is a not particularly foul-mouthed process server employed by his Uncle Max (Terry Kiser, basically playing his Weekend at Bernie’s character except, y’know, alive), working his way through college by helping to evict people from their homes. A former high school athlete, Monroe gets drawn into the world of beach volleyball and attracts the attention of Zack Barnes (Peter Horton), a former legend in the sport now fallen on hard times. But when our supposed hero gets angry while losing a match and breaks his partner’s arm, Zack steps in and inexplicably teams with Monroe, and together the two achieve volleyball greatness.

Which is a choice. Another choice would have been to ostracize Monroe and drive him out of beach volleyball before he injured anyone else. Obviously, a little assault-and-battery is acceptable when Monroe is just that passionate about winning. Even his old partner shows up in a cast to help propel Monroe and Zack to victory, because what’s a little broken arm between friends?

Side Out is bad, but unfortunately not bad enough to be truly entertaining. Taking itself far too seriously (c’mon, people, it’s a movie about beach volleyball!), the movie is saddled with an unlikable protagonist, pedestrian direction, and a ridiculously far-fetched finale. If you’re in the mood for a volleyball movie, save yourself from this one and check out…um… Hmm.

Let me get back to you on that. There must be a watchable volleyball movie somewhere.**

*This is an indisputable fact.

**Editor: Whatever it may be, it’s not Spiker. Maybe DOA: Dead or Alive.

Intermission!

• Side Out was the final picture from Aurora Productions. Having started the ‘80s with some success, they ended the decade with a series of flops and went out of business in 1990.
• The movie features quite a few professional beach volleyball players of the time, which makes the casting of C. Thomas Howell stand out even more. In a bad way. Howell, while athletic (and a former teen rodeo star), was quite a bit smaller than the real-life pro players and the differences on screen are apparent.
• Disappointingly, Howell does not have beach blonde hair in Side Out. Should have stayed golden, Ponyboy!