THE STORY: I seem to always end up doing movies like this backwards. This is the third "Substitute" movie. I haven't seen the others, but I rented the third one. (Well, I saw one of them but it was a long time ago and I wasn't really watching it. someone else rented it and it was on but I was reading or something) With this movie I give Treat Williams a reprieve from my [unwrite] list. He made that long ago when I saw him and Joe Piscopo in a really silly cop movie with zombies or what not years ago.

Colonel Carl Thomasson is a mercenary. In Bosnia he's captured along with a fellow mercenary, Macy. Macy is tortured to death but before he dies he asks Thomasson to give one of his old medals to his daughter, Nicole, if Thomasson makes it out alive. Well, Thomasson does make it alive and looks up Nicole.

Nicole is a college professor. She has some problems though. In her class are several of the star players on the university football team. These guys act like 13 years olds in her class and are within a hair's breadth of failing. If they fail the class they get kicked off of the team. Obviously the football jocks don't want this to happen so they decide to do what any cro-magnon would do. They decide to kick Nicole's ass. Unfortunately they try to kick her ass just as Thomasson is meeting her. So Thomasson ends up kicking their asses! Still, the cro-magnon---I mean jocks catch up with Nicole later and beat the snot out of her. She's hospitalized and unable to teach her classes. Thomasson goes to his friends and fellow mercs, Andie, Rahmel and Ed. He wants to find out who is responsible for hurting Nicole and poses as a teacher named Cooper to take over Nicole's classes.

Thomasson and his friends discover that the football coach, Braden, is supplying his team with steroids via a crook named Tony Lo and his father. I didn't write down the father's name so we'll just call him Mob boss Dude. He gets Andie to pose as a waitress in a bar where the players and Tony hang out. Ed wires the place for surveilence and Rahmel shadows them. In due time Braden, the jocks and Tony Lo realize that Prof. Cooper is not what he seems to be and they strike. They try to kill Cooper but he mops up the floor with the thugs and cuts Tony Lo's throat. This sends Mob Boss Dude in a frenzy. He tracks down Ed in the survellience van and kills him. Thomasson decides its no more Mister Nice Guy. Thomasson and his pals infiltrate the gangs little hideout and proceed to kick some ass. Effectively they kill everyone there, thus ending the big steroid threat.

Simple huh? Not the most original of stories, but it was not expected to be. Movies like this serve one purpose. To show the righteous good guys opening a can of whoopass on the bad guys. The bad guys of course have no redeeming traits whatsoever...in fact any traits they have are just to be bad...this way its almost orgasmic to watch the heroes effortlessly send them screaming to hell. One thing that attracted to me to this flick was the picture of Claudia Christian on the box. I think she's a good actress and I loved her as Commander Susan Ivanova on Babylon Five. In this movie she was Andie, the tough female mercenary. Thomasson was Treat Williams.

Best Lines: "You want me to pose as a waitress in a [unwrite]ing titty-bar?"-Andie to Thomasson when he firsts asks for her help.

1.) I find most football jocks obnoxious, but the guys in this movie are really obnoxious. If they were in High School I could see some of their shenanigans actually going on. But the random bullying and complete lack of decorum will get you kicked out of most colleges lickety split. Especially since most universities have their own security force. (I grew up in a college town...Newark, delaware...and the University of Delaware security guys were like the [unwrite]ing gestapo!) Now, I realize that some college football teams may do some dirty-dealing to keep their star players on the field, but the guys in this movie were so over the top that I really can't believe they'd get away with anything.

2.) Tony Lo, one of the bad guys is supposed to be a real crackerjack drug dealing thug....right. This guy is a skinny little twerp. I could kick his ass! This has nothing to do with the movie...the other day I was in the PX when I saw a gentleman in line with a big freaking handlebar moustache...you know, like the guy on the Pringles Potato Chip can...I realized then that moustaches look kind of stupid on some people. Not everyone, but some guys just look downright silly. The handlebar guy sure did. That said, Tony Lo, skinny little twerp drug dealer has a moustache...a regular one, not a handlebar moustache...and he looks plain stupid. I'm beginning to think that you should need a permit to grow a moustache.

3.) Thomasson kills Tony Lo in the schools swimming pool. So was there an investigation to find out why a dead guy is the pool? For that matter, after Thomasson, Rahmel and Andie take out the crooks in their hideout was there a police investigation? Didn't anyone wonder who killed all of these guys?

4.) I love the scene where Andie's throttling the [unwrite] out of the goon in the office and starts making sounds like shes screwing him so the other goons won't come in.

NUDITY AND SEX: The prerequisite amount of tits are seen.

HUH?: I never once feared for the lives of the heroes in this movie, but I knew one of them had to get killed or captured in order to add a little tension to the flick. At first I thought it would be Andie, and only because she was a woman. Even though Rahmel was the black sidekick I knew it wouldn't be him (Thank God...the black sidekick dying thing is soooo tired) Rahmel, the samuria warrior-guy was too skilled to get whacked by a bunch of goons. So that left Ed. Now when Ed does buy it its because the Mob Boss Dude finds him in his surveillence van. Before he gets shot Ed hits a switch and secretly records the guy shooting him. I say secretly, but it damn sure didn't look secret. First of all, the monitor facing the killer switches to his picture...this guy doesn't notice he's being recorded? Secondly why doesn't Ed have cameras pointing outwards so he can see if someone is approaching the van? Why doesn't Ed at least have a 9mm on the table so if someone does come up to the van he can bust a cap in them? If I were doing covert survellience work againt heartless thugs I [unwrite]ing would!

Coach Braden is a nincompoop. I can understand he needs his team to win. But he's nuts. The steroid thing is plain crazy in my opinion but people do take steroids in real life. But during practice Braden gets his team so wired they brawl on the feild with each other! No one...not one person there...says anything about this? Not one person went to the dean or some authority? Plus whats Braden thinking? Let 'em brawl? What if one of his prize players injures another player badly? A minor injury and he's lost a player...a serious one and someone is going to get sued! If my son ended up with broken ribs, missing teeth and a concussion from the coach letting players brawl on the football feild we'd be in court before you could say "Judge Judy!".

Mob boss Dude kills one of his henchmen simply because the poor idiot was the one to bring Tony Lo's body to him. Why do bad guys in movies always kill the messenger? We already know he's a bad guy. Killing this poor shmuck serves no real purpose. Hell, if I was one of the other mob guys there when Mob Boss Dude blows the guy away I'd quit. I wouldn't take the risk that Mob Boss Dude might get pissed at me one day and decide to blow my head off.

THE TALLY: If you're looking for a movie where you know the good guys are going to win...and the bad guys are all going to die...not go to jail, not disappear, but die....this is the ticket. Its no Lethal Weapon, but its a good watch for a moderate rental fee.