Where to watch Side Out
3 Stars
Midwestern law student comes to California for summer work. Instead, hangs out at the beach and chases waitresses. Meets up with a washed-up King of the Beach, and the rookie wins the biggest tournament of the year in only his second tournament.
My love for movies goes back to my earliest theater experience (E.T. or Return of the Jedi), but my real obsession with consuming films began when my parents got cable and then HBO in 1989. From that point on, I devoured as much cinema as I could get my hands on. My tastes have changed and preferences abound, but there is a certain type of lightweight movie that plays better on a small (CRT) television screen, and Side Out is exactly that kind of movie. This is a movie that I’ve seen in various stages. Before the streaming era of today, television audiences typically would catch a movie already playing and rarely see the whole thing from start to finish—more times than I care to count. Side Out was a staple of HBO’s summer movie rotation, and I recall it playing almost daily on the premium cable network.
This movie shamlessly uses Kenny Loggins music from Top Gun while also co-starring an actor from the Rocky movies (Tony Burton) and the stiff from Weekend at Bernie’s (Terry Keiser), plus the babe of the era, Courtney Thorne-Smith. Side Out premiered around the same time the Baywatch phenomenon was starting to occur around the globe, and this movie showcases the same stretch of beach and a similar tone overall. The sun-kissed photography, the attractive stars, and a good soundtrack make Side Out perfect afternoon viewing—the kind of movie where you could doze off for fifteen minutes and still pick up the story just fine.
Directed by: Peter Israelson
Written by: David Thoreau
Starring: C. Thomas Howell, Peter Horton, Courtney Thorne-Smith