Remember the Titans Reviewed

ROVIN' AND RAVIN' WITH MIKE

Too Sweet for Football

Remember the Titans

To get to the basics, Denzel Washington is as great as ever, bringing an inherent decency to an inherently decent character. The audience comes out of the dark with cheers and tears, perhaps with more good feelings than noble thoughts. Based on a true story—not even the names are changed—Remember the Titans recounts a time that in some ways seems long ago, in some ways doesn’t, when we were having to deal with the breakdown of racial segregation and the creation of new social patterns. This breakdown began with legislation, but as this movie recounts, so often the spirit and motivation for creating new patterns in many southern towns came in the athletic programs of the schools, when the "soul power" that the boys in this film speak of brought added power to the teams.

Will Patton plays Coach Yoast, a grand old football coach at a high school in Alexandria, Virginia, who is bumped down to assistant when Coach Boone, played by Denzel Washington, is assigned to the school since there are no black head coaches in the school district. Working together or against each other, Boone and Yoast overcome the suspicions and ignorance that divide the black and white players and shape them into a team—most importantly, it seems, a winning team. In some ways, this film seems to be an American version of the story of aboriginal athlete Cathy Freeman, who had Australians of all color and origins rooting for her at the Olympics. It is always easy to root for a winner.

An important part of the film is focused on the team’s summer camp, during which Yoast feels compelled to remind Boone that this is not Marine boot camp. The sequences at camp set up the main structure of the film—football, pompous speech, more football, with some especially good sound effects. This is a film that relies more on telling than showing, whipping the audience up to high emotional drive with the football sequences, and then laying on a heavy serving of noble thoughts.

The story deserves a better film. There is much in it very predictable, almost manipulative. We hear James Taylor’s "Fire and Rain" in the background, so we know Something-Is-About-To-Happen, and, guess what? Something Happens. But, this time, I was won over. The football sequences have a sort of beauty of their own, and as always, Denzel Washington is very watchable. So, too, is Will Patton, and so too are all the team-players of the ensemble.

This is a story that those of us in Worth County can relate to. Early on, Coach Boone tells a group of black supporters, "I am not Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King, or the Easter bunny. I’m just a football coach." There are folks in Worth County and elsewhere who would say the word just is in the wrong sentence there.

Since the story is set in 1971, for many young people in Worth County and elsewhere else, this film as far from their lives as this summer’s Dinosaur. I remember several years ago, when some of my students were doing some research in the library, one of my students expressed disbelief when he saw a photo identifying separate restrooms for blacks and whites. The student, by the way, was—oh, what does the color really matter?

This is a useful film, one that I imagine (or hope) teachers will encourage their students to see. Most of the violence is limited to the football field. The film mercifully lacks the obligatory bare-bottoms-in-the-locker-room scene or the obligatory boy-meets-girl (or girls or apple pie) scene or the obligatory pot-smoking or drinking scenes. The language is like the boys’ uniforms—not quite dirty enough to be believable. This is, after all, a Disney film. Women are pushed to the sidelines. This is, after all, a football film.

Finally, this film is about the coming of age not only of a group of engaging young men and even of their coaches. It is about the coming of age of our society. My stay at Worth County High as student ended in 1968, and I did not return as a teacher until 1976. So, I missed this particular stage in the coming of age of Worth County High. But, there is a story that I have heard more than once that illustrates the value of this film. The Worth County schools, it has always seemed to me, handled integration better than the schools of some other counties in our area. Worth County High’s Rams were one of the first football teams to be integrated, and there were rumors that after one "away" game, the other team had threatened to get the black player. As I’ve heard it reported, all the football players vowed to protect their team-mate, one of them saying, "He may be black, but he’s a Ram!"

One closing thought: bashing Hollywood has become a favorite pastime of political candidates, especially this year. Hollywood executives have responded by saying that they make the films that people want to see. So, let’s see if this film can attain the gross (no pun intended) of a film like American Pie. Keep your feet dry, and pointed toward the theater where Remember the Titans is playing, and if you are running short on noble thoughts, this film will be glad to fill your heart with them.