ABSTRACT
Phil Elliott (Nick Nolte) is a wide-receiver struggling to hold his place in the North Dallas football team. Having ‘started’ for six years, he now begins on the bench, partly because of a bad knee, partly because the coaches and management regard his attitude to the game as sceptical and immature. At a party he meets Charlotte Calder and with her begins to grow away from the game. After years of injury he has become reliant on pills and shots to get himself fit enough to play, and at one point he and his buddy, the quarter-back Maxwell, raid the team’s medical supplies. They discuss their injuries and Max says he is getting to like the pain: ‘When I dislocated my elbow it made me feel like I was doing something important.’ Elliott cannot sleep at night for pain in his knee, shoulders, back and neck.
