Sep 18, 2025 10:42pm PT 'The Senior' Review: Michael Chiklis Plays a 59-Year-Old College Linebacker in Rod Lurie's True-Life Sports Fairy Tale Mike Flynt rejoined his Texas college football team 35 years later. The film is a faith-based heart-tugger that plays this do-over as a life metaphor. By Owen Gleiberman Plus Icon Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic @OwenGleiberman Latest 'One Battle After Another' Review: Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn Are Brilliant in Paul Thomas Anderson's Mesmerizing Vision of a Police-State America 2 days ago 'You Had to Be There: How the Toronto Godspell Ignited the Comedy Revolution...' 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"The Senior" is a straight-down-the-middle-of-the-plate crowd-pleaser that's been fashioned out of a true-life fairy tale: the story of Mike Flynt, who in 2007 rejoined his former West Texas college football team at the age of 59. It's basically a soft-hearted paint-by-numbers TV-movie, stocked with homilies about the game of football vs. the game of life. Yet it's an effective soft-hearted paint-by-numbers TV-movie. Related Stories 'Beating Hearts' Producer Hugo Selignac on Delivering His Biggest Movie With Venice Closing Pic 'Dog 51' and Luring Quentin Dupieux, Leos Carax (EXCLUSIVE) Studiocanal Hires Sky Studios Commissioner Paul Gilbert as SVP of English-Language Series Michael Chiklis, looking like Joe Rogan in about 10 years, plays Flynt with the heart and soul of a tough Teddy bear, and though the film is unabashedly manipulative (as is every movie released by Angel Studios), "The Senior" earns its lumps in the throat right along with its lumps on the field. After Flynt rejoins his old team, one of the coaches even says, "He's like a 59-year-old Rudy!" That more or less nails it. "The Senior" is one of those sports films based on a real story that feels more like a movie than most made-up sports movies do. Popular on Variety When I was growing up, one of my favorite books - I read it over and over again - was "Instant Replay: The Green Bay Diary of Jerry Kramer." It was an inside look at the 1967 season of the Green Bay Packers as told by Jerry Kramer, the Packers right guard who chronicled the insanely punishing discipline of being coached by Vince Lombardi, who ran the Packers' training camp like a cross between a drill sergeant and a guard at Abu Ghraib. What astonished me about the book was the way it was equal parts pain and faith: Being an NFL lineman was about as bruising an ordeal as one could imagine, yet the players shared a reverence; before every game, they would pray. As Kramer captured it, their bone-and-muscle-crunching agony, like Lombardi's coaching, was all part of a higher calling. "The Senior," too, is a film that locates that place in football where rehab meets rapture. The opening half hour sketches in the backstory, which feels almost too absurd to believe (though it actually happened, so we roll with it). The movie jumps back to 1970, when Flynt (played in the early scenes by Shawn Patrick Clifford) is the middle linebacker and team captain of the Lobos, the varsity squad of Sull Ross State University. He's a leader with one vice: He likes to fight...too much. In fact, his need for fisticuffs gets him tossed out of school. Cut to 37 years later. Mike, now played with a friendly glower by the bald and barrel-chested Chiklis, is a construction-site foreman, married for decades to Eileen (Mary Stuart Masterson), with several grown children. He's doing all right. But he's haunted by his bully of a father (lots of flashbacks to dad teaching the young Mike how to fight by calling him a "little runt" and punching him in the face), and when it comes to his own college-instructor son, Micah (Brandon Flynn), he's less a supporting parent than a nagging narcissist, always trying to get the kid to follow in his jock footsteps. It's a 35-year college reunion that brings Mike together with his old teammates, where the kooky idea comes up that he could actually rejoin the team because he never finished his senior year. The film doesn't get much into the technicalities (wouldn't he have to reapply to college?); it cuts right to the coach, Sam Weston (Rob Corddry), treating Mike's attempt to try out for the team like t