SummarySeveral players from different backgrounds try to cope with the pressures of playing football at a major university. Each deals with the pressure differently, some turn to drinking, others to drugs, and some to studying.
Directed By:David S. Ward
Written By:David S. Ward, Aaron Latham
The Program
Metascore
Mixed or Average
51
User score
Generally Favorable
7.0
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Top Cast
Metascore
Mixed or Average
51
20% Positive
4 Reviews
4 Reviews
75% Mixed
15 Reviews
15 Reviews
5% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
75
With convincing in-your-face footage, The Program is certain to be a crowd pleaser for fans who like their football action raw. Some of the roughest action is off the field. [25 Sept 1993, p.E1]
67
James Caan is underused as the crusty coach who needs a championship season, but he is supported by good turns from the highly angst-ridden quarterback (Craig Sheffer) and the straight-from-the-streets rookie running back (Omar Epps).
60
The Program tries to travel light and heavy, and the combination of noggin-banging action and deep-think doesn’t gel. Latham, who has previously bestowed upon us the ersatz pop reportage of “Urban Cowboy” and “Perfect,” doesn’t tunnel very deep into the world of college athletics. What he and Ward come up with is fairly standard stuff that seems derived mostly from old movies.
50
Despite buoying our hopes that it might be a new-fangled sports film, ``The Program'' devolves into a doltish drama about Triumph Over Adversity, all but forsaking the pure, thrilling bloodlust of its early moments. [24 Sept 1993, p.AE16]
50
The Program starts in a fourth-down situation by being a sports movie with virtually no one for whom the audience can root — a major drawback, no matter how hackneyed those “Rocky”-ized finishes have become. Instead, Ward and co-writer Aaron Latham seek to indict big-time college football through a collection of cliches (money-doling boosters, steroid abuse, academic negligence , shady recruiting practices) and still want us to care about whether these players and coaches win the big game.
42
The Program trudges along like a fat freshman walk-on in a muddy practice field, piling up one collegiate scandal after another without a moral in sight. [24 Sept 1993, p.6B]
25
The stupendously stupid The Program purports to detail one season in the life of the football team of Eastern State University as it struggles for a college bowl berth, but the players must overcome such inflated melodramatic claptrap it's a miracle they ever make it onto the field at all. [27 Sept 1993, p.C6]
User score
Generally Favorable
7.0
75% Positive
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
25% Mixed
1 Rating
1 Rating
0% Negative
0 Ratings
0 Ratings
Jul 9, 2026
4
A toothless college football movie laden with genre stereotypes, poor acting, and stale direction. This will not be a Jimmy Caan performance that I remember, he embodies a college football coach so poorly its shocking. I want to give a specific shoutout to 'Eastern State University' and their schedule here as they try to get bowl eligible for the first time in 3 years and also win their conference championship (????). They played Miss State, Michigan, Boston College, Texas, UNC, Iowa, and Georgia Tech. I can only assume the producers could only take what they were given in terms of willing university's to participate.
Production Company:
- Touchstone Pictures
- The Samuel Goldwyn Company
Release Date:Sep 24, 1993
Duration:1 h 52 m
Rating:R
Tagline:Pressure surrounds them. Competition divides them. Talent unites them. A story of what it takes to survive...
