Aspiring lawyer Monroe Clark (C. Thomas Howell) has traveled from Milwaukee to Los Angeles to spend the summer working at his uncle’s law firm before his senior year of college. Uncle Max (Terry Kiser, Weekend at Bernies) is a ruthless real-estate lawyer who does whatever it takes to please his clients, which has made him a very wealthy man. Max tasks his nephew with serving pay-or-quit notices to the list of deadbeat tenants for one of the firm’s biggest clients. However, this task turns out to be a bit harder than Monroe expected. Everyone seems to have an excuse or some way of dodging him, especially Zack Barnes (Peter Horton), who is way over-due on the rent for his beachside cottage. Barnes used to be the “King of the Beach”—a former pro volleyball player who mysteriously quit just before a major tournament while at the top of his game, which led to a fallout with his promoter/ex Kate (Harley Jane Kozak). Now he spends his time coaching kids at a beach club, while dodging bookies and creditors.

When Monroe first arrived at LAX, he met entrepreneur Wiley Hunter (Christopher Rydell). When Wiley isn’t giving tours of celebrity gravesites, he is playing beach volleyball, and he recruits Monroe to be his partner. While Monroe has never played volleyball before, he quickly takes to this new sport, often spending his lunch hour on the beach, practicing and training for the upcoming tournament. It’s also there where he first meets attractive cocktail waitress Samantha (Courtney Thorne-Smith), who’s studying to be a marine biologist. When Monroe finally manages to catch up with Zack and serve him his papers, Zack offers a proposition. If Monroe were to “lose” his paperwork in order to give him some time for his “investments” to come though, in exchange Zack would help coach him for the upcoming volleyball tournament against the new “King of the Beach”, Rollo Vincent (Randy Stoklos). And so Monroe finds himself quickly becoming ensconced in the California beach volleyball culture, while also trying to balance his legal work for his uncle and buy Zack some time.

Side Out was originally released in 1990, and I had watched this film many times back then. However, it had probably been at least 20 years since I last saw it, so I didn’t really remember a lot about it as I watched this Blu-ray. The film itself holds up quite well 30+ years later, with just a few remarks by Monroe that probably wouldn’t fly in today’s culture—there’s a scene where Monroe passes by a line of sunbathing women on the beach, their scantily-clad butts in the air, and he comments to Wiley about wishing he had a spatula (for those hot buns). The pastel Mossimo volleyball outfits also scream late 1980s/early 1990s. But the story itself still feels quite relevant today (assuming beach volleyball is still popular). It’s the story of an ambitious law student with ideals and ideas of changing the world, who works for his despicable uncle who represents everything that’s wrong with lawyers. He’s initially a fish out of water on the West Coast, but falls for a girl, and ultimately finds his place in this new culture. Meanwhile, he discovers the so-called “bad guy” may not be that bad after all, and each of them find themselves at a crossroads, facing a crisis of conscience, having to make a difficult choice between redemption and riches.

The film has a great 1980’s soundtrack, featuring songs by Paula Abdul, The B-52’s, and even Kenny Loggins’ “Playing with the Boys”. Yes, the same song that plays in the iconic volleyball scene in Top Gun—maybe this was a prerequisite if you were going to have a beach volleyball scene in your film in the 1980s?! Overall, I found the film to be entertaining, with some fun characters and relationships, solid performances, some interesting story twists, and some exciting beach volleyball action. However, some of writing doesn’t completely make sense if you think about it too hard. Monroe is working for his uncle in order to make money to pay for law school, yet he’ll only be a senior in college, and he’s being treated like he’s already a lawyer, even presenting a case in front of a judge in one scene. Also, some of the action in the volleyball match montages doesn’t quite add up—there seems to be way too many dramatic misses and big scores when compared with the actual number of points in the match. Though it does make the matches more exciting!

Like many of Mill Creek’s other Retro VHS releases, this disc is barebones, just offering a basic menu with Play and Subtitle On/Off options. Previous DVD releases of Side Out also did not include any bonus material, so there is nothing dropped from this Blu-ray release in that regard. Mill Creek’s release is the first time the film has been released in HD on Blu-ray, but the video presentation is a bit disappointing and lacking. There are a lot of white flecks and film noise, particularly during opening title sequence, and then the film itself looks excessively smoothed, losing a lot of potential detail and textures. The picture seemed to get a bit better as the film went along (or maybe I just got used to it more), but never really looked great. It’s missing that clarity and level of detail you typically get from newer Blu-ray releases. Close-ups of faces are lacking details like pores and blemishes, and the sand on the volleyball courts is more of a blur rather than individual grains of sand. While it’s likely this picture looks better than the original DVD release, it’s not going to be a major improvement, and probably not worth an upgrade for those who already own the DVD. The stereo audio track provides clear dialogue, and while it doesn’t have that immersive quality of surround sound, the track still makes nice use of the left and right channels to enhance the on-screen volleyball action and the film’s pop soundtrack. That said, any deficiencies in the technical presentation didn’t effect my overall enjoyment of the movie, and as someone who didn’t already own Side Out on disc, I’m happy to welcome this to my collection.

The Blu-ray disc comes packed in a standard Blu-ray keepcase, with a Retro VHS slipcover that makes the release look like a classic VHS rental tape. The details on these slipcovers are really fun, and the design even extends to the spine as well, allowing these discs to displayed like a collection of VHS tapes on your shelf. The standard case artwork with the slipcover removed can be seen below:

What’s Included:

Film: (1:43:39)

• 1080p / Widescreen 1.85:1
• Audio: English 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio
• Subtitles: English SDH

Extras:

There is no bonus material included on this disc.

Final Thoughts:

Side Out is an entertaining beach volleyball film—a genre that we could always use more of—that holds up quite well over 30 years later. The technical presentation of Mill Creek’s Blu-ray release is a bit disappointing, with a picture that has been overly-smoothed and lacks the level of detail we’d expect in an HD release. The disc is barebones, without any bonus material, but does include a fun retro VHS slipcover. Those who already own a previous DVD release of Side Out can probably pass on this, but for those who don’t, the Blu-ray is worth a look for a fun retro trip to the past.