Looking for a comedy about missed romantic opportunities told through a juxtaposition of rough-housing and inner reflections? Then watch "A Mid-Summer Night's Dream". Essentially "Semi-Tough" sells the pain of misdirected love by chasing the emotions down with a shot of football-player toughness and religious/spiritual ineptness. Compare that approach to juxtaposition of the rowdy Nick Bottom and boisterous Puck to pining Helena and Hermia. Semi tough even one-ups Shakespeare by taking using the same characters to embody these disparate virtues.
In biting off this challenge, however, the movie strays from the characters and into lapses of football games and farcical "individual awareness" training. Only Puckett's character manages to be mildly interesting, yet he fails to take center stage in the action - which is muddled by distractions. Kristofferson's character quickly becomes 1 dimensional, leaving me indifferent to the final climax. And the closing dialogue begs the question, "where did the title come from?"
In biting off this challenge, however, the movie strays from the characters and into lapses of football games and farcical "individual awareness" training. Only Puckett's character manages to be mildly interesting, yet he fails to take center stage in the action - which is muddled by distractions. Kristofferson's character quickly becomes 1 dimensional, leaving me indifferent to the final climax. And the closing dialogue begs the question, "where did the title come from?"