It's Almost Never About Football

Reviewing - Football Flicks

The Super Bowl is just around the corner. It's one of the biggest sporting events of the year - even people who don't care about football will tune in to watch the commercials or the Halftime Show. It's also Black History Month, where we highlight and celebrate Black stories. With that in mind, here are four football movies that are more than just about football. Well - three of them are about more than football. The other one is just a hot mess.

Remember The Titans (*****)

In which Denzel Washington tells pretty much everyone he meets to run a mile

This is an absolute classic – there’s so much to love about this movie. Denzel Washington gives us an iconic performance as Coach Boone: the no-nonsense victory-driven boss-of-a-man who finds himself coaching a mixed-race football team in a time where race was all anyone talked about. Each member of the cast adds something significant and exciting to the movie, particularly the players on the team. Julius Campbell and Gerry “Superman” Bertier make you believe in bromance and really showcase the beauty of overcoming prejudice. Petey Jones sweats charisma and livens up any scene he’s in. Louie Lastik is charming and instantly lovable. A lot of people forget entirely that Ryan Gosling was in this film aswell as one of the players, and I think that’s in part because there’s just so many other high points to consider. Who could forget ‘Sunshine’, or Hayden Panettiere’s performance as the young Sheryl Yoast? They’re all fantastic, and they all add something really special to the picture.

I have to mention the soundtrack to the film, which is packed with hits like “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”, “Spirit in the Sky”, “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye”, and other toe-tapping tunes from the era of the film’s story. Not only do we get to enjoy these songs as an audience, but the characters do too – they’re constantly dancing, singing, and grooving to music with and without each other in a way that makes you love the songs even more. It’s the fun that these characters have together that makes this movie work. Coach Boone is a terrific self-professed “mean old cuss”, but it’s the moments where the characters smile together that make this film as impactful as it is.

Watching this movie in 2019, one aspect of the film that was depressing was how relevant the themes of racism and prejudice still were decades after the time period of the story. We still deal with riots and protests, shootings and police brutality. We’re not nearly as different from the world of Remember the Titans as we’d like to be. This movie is a terrific story about one group that overcame racism, but it should be a call to action for us today just as much as it was when it was released almost twenty years ago.

The Blind Side (***)

In which what Sandra Bullock says goes and there will be no questions

This is a football movie with hardly any football in it, but that’s okay because it’s a terrific story. Michael Oher is a charming and instantly lovable protagonist – he’s kind, hardworking, and fiercely loyal. Sandra Bullock does a terrific job playing Leigh Anne Tuohy – she actually won an Academy Award for Best Actress because of this film. Every character to be honest is pretty likable. It’s a feel-good movie, so that makes sense. To that end, this movie is more about what makes a family than playing football. The focus is on Oher’s time with the Tuohy family – how the bonds were formed, how the family adjusted and grew because of his influence, and how the individual characters were changed through him. There’s really only one big “football” scene in the whole movie.

People have criticized this film for promoting the “white savior” narrative – an outdated narrative trope where a white person comes in and saves a minority. The idea comes from the colonial era where Europeans went all over the world trying to take up as much land as they could from people groups with less guns than them. It was conquest, plain and simple – but the Europeans painted it as “We’re saving these people from themselves. We’re enlightening them.” Obviously this kind of story is now in very poor taste, so when a movie shows us a rich white family taking a poor black kid out of poverty and into the beauty of the high-class life, some people might take some offense. When I sat down to re-watch this film, that idea of the white savior was rolling around in my head. But there are a few things to note that keep this film on morally praiseworthy ground. For one thing, this is a true story. You can’t get mad at the Tuohys for adopting Michael Oher on the grounds that they’re like white supremacists or something. They’re good people for doing what they did – and at least when looking at the movie itself, I get the impression that Leigh Anne would’ve done what she did no matter what colour Michael’s skin was. Secondly, the movie acknowledges the fact that its premise can appear suspicious. We see that when Michael is called in for questioning, and his interviewer basically says “What’s to stop any rich white family from adopting a poor black kid and sending him to play sports for their favourite school?”. To that end, the movie doesn’t ignore its critics. It admits that this looks a little weird, but reinforces that this doesn’t change the inherent goodness of what the Tuohys have done. Race plays a role in the story, but not in the motivations of the characters.

All in all, this was a really nice movie – perfect for a cozy evening in.

The Express: The Ernie Davis Story (***1/2)

In which Dennis Quaid decides not to be a racist

Much like its lead character, this movie ended up getting robbed of the potential for much higher heights. But maybe greatness in film isn’t defined by how long a film stays in theatres as much as it is what the film does with the time it has on the screen.

First of all, Beverley Hills Chihuahua beat this film in the opening weekend. That’s a travesty. I don’t know how this film managed to mess up its marketing bad enough to lose to Beverley Hills Chihuahua. This is a good movie – maybe even better than good. Much like the other football movies I’ve watched, this isn’t a movie about football. It’s a movie about racism. Ernie doesn’t initially set out to be a force for good – he just wants to play football. But he quickly learns that everything he does on the field makes an impact on the world around him. Watching movies like this one, it can be easy to think that racism is something we’ve since grown out of. Unfortunately, this film is just as relevant today as it was in 2008 – if not more so. Yes, racism is found in big loud moments, like in the death of George Floyd or in the field brawl we see in this film. But it’s also found in quiet places, like in the looks a visible minority might receive when they walk into a room or in the exclusion of Black Americans from a hotel in the film. One solution is presented by Dennis Quaid’s character – when he learns some of his players aren’t welcome, he drags the hotel manager forward and shares the restriction angrily in front of everyone. Evil needs good men to do nothing, and I think that’s a major theme of this film. This is a movie about good men doing something – however small or big.

Maybe I shouldn’t have opened with the Beverley Hills Chihuahua fact because there’s something much cooler about this flick. Chadwick Boseman is in it, and it’s his film debut. It’s a small role, for sure, and we don’t see him until the final act of the film, but it’s cool to see him – especially because of the similarities between Boseman’s actual story and the story we’re told over the course of this movie. Boseman as Marvel’s Black Panther was destined for greatness, but it seems that he was cut short far before his time. But just because we’ll never get another Chadwick Boseman Black Panther film doesn’t mean that Boseman hadn’t achieved greatness. He made the most of the time that he had, just as Ernie Davis did.

I’m 27 at the time of this review, meaning I’m four years older than Ernie ever got to be. That’s a privilege and a gift that’s hard to quantify, especially when I think about all that Ernie accomplished in his life. This film was a reminder for me that I am not promised tomorrow, and that every decision I make shifts the world towards further peace or further conflict. Football isn’t just football, and silence isn’t just silence. Ernie Davis chose to be part of the solution – and it wasn’t by leading rallies or writing letters. It was by doing what he could to the best of his abilities for as long as he could. That’s something to take away from this film.

Facing The Giants (1/2)

In which an infertile high school football coach makes his players read Scripture, and then subsequently has a baby and wins the State Championship

This is one of the worst films I've ever reviewed.

Firstly, it's unbelievably cheesy. Even if God hadn't stepped in for the climactic football game to change the direction of the wind so that the shrimp field goal kicker could score the winning point, there'd be more than enough to make you sick. Like, what football team is going to want to stop cheering five minutes after winning the State Championship so that they can hear a sermon?! Why on earth is the coach asking his wife if she'll still love God even if they can't have kids? There is not one ounce of subtlety in this whole thing. There are no whispers of faith. Every moment that has to do with Christianity is broadcast through a megaphone. It's hit-you-over-the-head storytelling - or in other words, bad storytelling.

I'm a Christian. I believe that God cares about us and that everything we do - even football - has an impact on our souls. But movies are stories, and this is not a good story. It's a shallow sermon dressed as a narrative. The editing is terrible, the acting is empty, and the script is a nightmare. I'm not even sure if Jesus himself would approve of this. I know that God looks at the heart - and on that level, He might admire this film based on the intention behind it. But if God and I were sitting in a movie theatre watching this together, I'm not sure who would groan first