ROVIN’ AND RAVIN’ WITH MIKE
Copyright © 2000 by Michael Segers, All rights reserved
Too Sweet for Football
Remember
the Titans
Coach
Boone - Denzel Washington
Coach
Yoast - Will Patton
Directed
by - Boaz Yakin
Writing
credits - Gregory Allen Howard
Rated
PG for theme and some language; runtime 113 minutes
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, 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. Then, again, it is a
story that many people in Worth County will find hard to believe or relate to.
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 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.
I usually provide a link to another
review, which, whether or not I agree with it, I like and feel I learn something
from. This week, after writing my review and looking checking the list of
reviews by other members of the Online Film Critics Society, I was surprised to
see how consistent the reviews are—no one-star ratings, no four-star ratings
either. (By the way, I always list my ratings as "mixed," since in all
honesty, they are.) So, this time, I offer you a link to quite a few reviews and
an opportunity to see how critics with varying perspectives can come to agree on
a very agreeable film—
http://www.ofcs.org/review.php3?movie=Remember+the+Titans