The Turkey Bowl Review (2019) – A lighthearted nonsense film about old high school friendships and football!

Thanksgiving is almost upon us! This is a holiday that has rather questionable origins, but is still one we here in the states celebrate every year. We believe most people are aware that Turkey is the main event on Thanksgiving, and to honor that and do our best to stay in theme we’ve decided to watch a rather silly film called The Turkey Bowl!

This was a surprisingly fun film and one of the better Thanksgiving related films we have watched so far this November. We were surprised at how much we actually laughed and enjoyed this film! We are planning to add it to our yearly Thanksgiving roster for future Thanksgivings. Is it a cinematic triumph? No, but if you are looking for some fun, humor and American football this movie is for you!

We do want to give a heads up here and say that this movie may be triggering for some; it dances with toxic masculinity, as well as just generally immature behavior.   

We will do everything we can to not give too many spoilers in this review but there is likely to be some, so please take that into consideration and read cautiously.

Our story begins with what appears to be someone destroying their yearbook to make some kind of mildly graphic Thanksgiving card! We find out later that this someone is the main characters friend, Mitchell (Matt Jones). The music and scene sets the tone for the film, giving it a high school/frat boy feel.

After this, we find ourselves meeting our main character Patrick Hodges (Ryan Hansen). He is a business man of some kind, we never get clarification there, and he receives Thanksgiving invitation cards every year from his home town friend, Mitchell.

Hodges has not been accepting these invitations, and is very focused on proposing to his girlfriend Ashley Sinclair (Blair Bomar).

Ashley Sinclair is the daughter of a political family. Her father is looking to run for president and Hodges needs to make sure that he is walking a very straight line so as not to reflect poorly on his potential new family.

He is about to step on a plane to go on a trip with Ashley and her family when he receives a phone call. This phone call is to inform him that his friend, Mitchell, passed away! Struck by grief, he gets in his car to drive to his home town instead of getting on the plane to Vail, CO with his girlfriend and her family.

Hodges arrives in his hometown of Putnam and goes straight to the local bar. Here he discovers that he has been lied to! Mitchell is very much alive and well! This scene, in particular, made me laugh and also made me a bit uncomfortable at the same time.

Lying so that you can manipulate someone to do what you want is not very friendly in my opinion, as well as just the immature behavior that all of his friends display towards him is both silly and a bit concerning. They do know that they are full grown men right? They do know that they are no longer in High School right? It has an “I peaked in high school and now I’m obsessed with it” vibe to it, for sure.

They rationalize lying to Hodges because he has “ghosted” them for years and they needed to get him to come back to Putnam for an extremely important event…you guessed it! The Turkey Bowl!

The Turkey Bowl is important because, back in high school, they lost the Turkey Bowl due to a freak snow storm blowing in, in the middle of their game! As a result they had to forfeit and did not get their chance at glory!

They want their glory. So much so that they have been wanting to finish their Turkey Bowl game for 15 years! Now that they have Hodges, their quarterback, back in town they have the correct number of necessary players. To Hodges credit, he attempts to express that they may be too old to be so fixated on an old football game, but this falls on deaf ears.

Now they can redo the game against their arch rivals from the next town over, The Noble Knights football team, led by our main antagonist Ronnie Best (Alan Ritchson). They are damn sure going to ensure that Hodges doesn’t ruin it for them! He is staying and he is playing!

The lengths they go to to keep Hodges from leaving are truly ridiculous. The whole town is in on this and they do what they feel they have to, to keep Hodges there to play the game.

Hodges embraces radical acceptance and decides to stay. Now the practice can begin! Nonsense, arguments, pranks, old high school flames and more ensue as we meet more fun characters, and watch a lot of football playing montages.

We will leave it here so as to not give too many more details or the ending of the film away!

As lacking in seriousness as this film is, it also takes a look at friendship dynamics, aging, and growing apart and what that can mean. It is a movie about nostalgia just as much as it is a film that flirts with toxic masculinity.

We found ourselves laughing but also appreciating the nostalgia of it. It is typically very difficult for adults to make new friends or to preserve old friendships. Life, time, distance and the fact that nothing remains stagnant not even ourselves, can play a big role in how well we are able to maintain friendships. It is not at all like when we were kids all going to the same school and getting to spend time together regularly.

As adults it is a struggle. The hustle of life, finding time, etc. Adulting makes having a social life very complicated. While this film is a bit of a nonsense movie and does demonstrate a lot of cringe worthy behaviors from quite a few characters, it also makes you think of your old friendships.

We here consider ourselves to be very lucky in our friends, especially our old friends and this film made us think of some of the antics we could get up to when we were young.

Not the toxic stuff of course although when we went to high school…there was A LOT of that. Not perpetuated by ourselves, but still. Also, it has to be noted that neither of us are very athletic people…in high school or now!

The larks it reminds us of is the fun. The fun we had and shared with our past friends as well as the fun we get to still have with the friends we were able to grow with.

Some friendships are not meant to stand the test of time. Some friendships we outgrow and no longer serve us and that is perfectly normal. But that doesn’t mean we can’t still look back on them fondly and wish those people who helped shape us well.

Overall, we had fun watching this movie! It was not easy to find a movie that was at least relatively in theme and that was enjoyable. We recommend this film, but with a bit of a caveat! The first time we watched this movie through some of the more immature and triggering aspects of the film were distracting. We recommend watching this film at least 2 times. We enjoyed it way more the second time through!

We give this movie…3 Beers out of 5!

The Turkey Bowl Drinking Game

Take a sip anytime:

1.     Someone says "Hodges"

2.     Someone says "Ronnie Best"

3.     Someone says "Turkey bowl"

4.     Someone says "Badger Red"

5.     Ronnie Best says something awkward, yet weirdly funny

6.     Brandy Best is a creep

7.     Someone says Putnam or Noble

8.     Someone is drinking beer or there's beer on screen

9.     You hear a cheesy pun or joke

10.  The characters behave immaturely or like frat boys

11.  Hodges has an awkward interaction with a female character

12.  There's a fight (physical or verbal)

13.  Hodges feels nostalgic

14.  There is a football montage                                  

 What did you think?? Did you like the movie? Did you hate it!? Do you have suggestions for films we should consider?! Let us know down in the comments and always remember to be safe and drink responsibly!