BEFORE: Well, I was all set to wrap up Football Week tonight, but then I stopped at the $5 DVD store on the way home, and picked up 2 more football movies. Might as well, right? Why leave so many un-watched? Even with these 2 last-minute additions, I'll still have a number of football films to track down for a possible follow-up next November.
From high-school football we move up to college football, but from the late 80's back in time to the 1970's...
THE PLOT: When a plane crash claims the lives of members of the Marshall University football team and some of its fans, the team's new coach and his surviving players try to keep the football program alive.
AFTER: This was a stirring, emotional movie - not just about football, but about how a town and its people recover from a very tragic loss. What happens AFTER 75 people die in a plane crash - do they rebuild the team? SHOULD they rebuild the team? Do you honor the memory of the departed by moving on, or by NOT moving on?
More to the point - HOW should the team move on? The University president (David Strathairn) conducts a search, and comes up with cockeyed-optimist Jack Lengyel, played by Matthew McConnaughey (last seen by me in "Dazed & Confused"). Lengyel sees the glass as half-full, and starts with three team members and an assistant coach (Matthew Fox) who were either injured or missed the plane. It's funny to see Matthew Fox avoiding a plane crash - unlike what he did on the TV series "Lost."
At the same time, the University president petitions the NCAA to allow the school to stock its team with freshmen, and the NCAA grants them an exemption, in light of the tragedy. What's that saying about the Chinese word for "crisis" being the same as the one for "opportunity"? The coaches also visit a rival school, and are granted access to some crucial game-films to study in order to put together a game-plan that best suits their team.
Once again, the subject of the film is the smaller, ragtag bunch of misfits that we're supposed to root for. Once again, the star player suffers an injury at the worst possible time (is there ever a good time?). But there's more going on here - as the team learns that in this one case, it's not about winning or losing, it actually is about how they play the game. And more importantly, that they rise to the challenge of playing the game at all.
I liked McConnaughey's performance, it's probably the most mature acting job I've seen from him, even if he had a weird tendency to talk only out of the right side of his mouth during the whole film. And something about the 70's haircut and the plaid sports jackets sort of suited him. I usually like David Strathairn, too - and Ian McShane did a nice job as a (mostly) surly grieving parent. But Matthew Fox and Kimberly Williams-Paisley (as Lengyel's wife) just seemed mostly like blanks to me. I didn't really recognize anyone else...
A lot of times, sports films are about the underdogs - and I'm glad I watched a film about an underdog team on a day when a bunch of overpaid Yankee millionaires are celebrating their World Series "victory" (if you can call it that...)
RATING: 6 out of 10 field goals
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