Knight's tale lacks depth. (Remote Patrol).('A Season on the Brink')

After an advance screening, the movie critic's duty is to provide pithy phrases suitable for use in trailers and newspaper notices. Me, I'm perspiring to produce the definitive slogan for the first made-for-ESPN flick, A Season On the Brink.

"Move over, Steve Martin! Brian Dennehy is `The Jerk' known as Bobby Knight!" Too wordy.

"Bleep!" Too open-ended.

"Based on the book!" Okey-doke.

Brink, which premieres March 10 (a.k.a. Selection Sunday), is a semi-literal adaptation of the best-seller by John Feinstein, who claims the script is semibogus. (Big whoop. Since when do book authors like screen adaptions?) The movie opens with the coach visiting Normandy's beaches, an aside Feinstein buried. The book ends when the season ends; the movie ends with Knight's firing in 2000. Worse, moans Feinstein, the filmmakers favor "melodramatic screaming scenes."

At those, Dennehy excels. In wig and monogram sweater, Dennehy sheds his lovable Tommy Boy image and embodies the Hoosier Daddy. He rages as convincingly as Nick Nolte's Knight Lite in Blue Chips, snarling such epithets as "Nice is for women's magazines. Nice is for losers." (Warning: In the director's cut, Dennehy launches 15 f-bombs--all bleeped--before the first commercial. Hel-lo, TV-MA rating.)

As the only star in the cast, Dennehy is in practically every scene--"Brink goes as far as Dennehy ...