Taglines: A comedy about life, hope, and getting even.
The Best of Times movie storyline. Jack Dundee (Robin Williams) 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, which ended in a scoreless tie.
Since that game, Jack has found it impossible to forget this event. He works for his father-in-law, The Colonel, Bakersfield’s biggest supporter, who reminds him of the event almost daily. Thirteen years later, Jack coerces Reno Hightower (Russell), quarterback of the fateful game, and now a financially struggling garage owner in debt to Jack’s bank, into helping him replay the game. He convinces supporters in both towns to re-stage the game and in the process revitalizes Taft, as well as his and Reno’s marriages.
The Best of Times is a 1986 American comedy-drama film directed by Roger Spottiswoode, written by Ron Shelton, and starring Robin Williams and Kurt Russell as two friends attempting to relive a high school football game. Supporting cast are Pamela Reed, Holly Palance, Donald Moffat, Margaret Whitton, M. Emmet Walsh, Kathleen Freeman, Kirk Cameron, Robyn Lively, Anne Haney and Linda Hart.
Much of the film was shot in and around the actual Taft Union High School. The football scenes took place at Pierce Junior College in the San Fernando Valley. The night game was filmed at Moorpark High School, in Moorpark, CA.
The Best of Times (1986)
Directed by: Roger Spottiswoode
Starring: Robin Williams, Kurt Russell, Pamela Reed, Holly Palance, Donald Moffat, Margaret Whitton, M. Emmet Walsh, Kathleen Freeman, Kirk Cameron, Robyn Lively, Anne Haney, Linda Hart
Screenplay by: Ron Shelton
Production Design by: Joel Glickman, Art Levinson
Cinematography by: Charles F. Wheeler
Film Editing by: Garth Craven
Costume Design by: Patricia Norris
Set Decoration by: Marc E. Meyer Jr.
Music by: Arthur B. Rubinstein
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for adult situations, language, violence.
Distributed by: Universal Pictures
Release Date: January 31, 1986
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