What is your team?

Rating: 8/10 (25 August 2006)

Football has been called the ultimate team game. The NFL is the ultimate football stage. What team do you root for? More importantly, however, what team do you play for? That's the question that must be answered, and gets answered well in Invincible.
Vince Papale loses his job; his wife leaves him, and then, to add insult to injury, she takes all of his stuff. At 30, he's reduced to asking his dad just for rent money. Philadelphia is going through its own crisis at the same time: strikes, layoffs, general economic malaise, urban blight. Vince's problems evidently were a microcosm of Philly's. Or were Philly's problems the result of a single Vince Papale multiplied a million times?
But Vince has one last shot at success. Every man's dream to play in the NFL. It's Rocky all over again. Curious that Vince Papale's football success happened in the same fall, 1976, that Sylvester Stallone's fictional Rocky became the nation's hero. Good year for cheese steaks, I guess.
Both sexes come together to get their needs met for this football movie The girls to see a really buff Mark Wahlberg in the locker room, and the boys to imagine that they would get that one in a million chance to play NFL football.
We all carry emotional baggage from the past with us wherever we go. Director Ericson Core, in his directorial debut, helmet butts us with the baggage symbolism. Vince carries his equipment bag from home to the bar to the locker room to the training camp dorm room. He has it packed and ready to go, when he gets the final cut notices. Perfect. We never let go of our old baggage.
How do we let go of the past? Does it motivate us to bigger and better achievements, or does it keep us from realizing our ultimate dream? It did both for Vince, as I suppose it does for us as well. Our past injuries leave scars; scars reflect healing, but forever remind us of the pain.
How does Vince let go of the past? His life failures were summed up in the note left by his not so understanding wife. He used it as motivation to make the team, but it wasn't enough. Only when Vince realized which team was his, did he realize his dream.
The mid-70's song soundtrack is the ultimate 12th man on both movie teams, always in the background, never overwhelming. Only true rock'n'roll fans will recognize "I Fooled Around and Fell in Love" without its lyrics as idiot Vince walks away for the second time from his new flame/coworker Janet (Elizabeth Banks). Plaid pants, polyester leisure suits, and huge shirt collars on the shirts definitely reminded us how bad 70's fashions really were. A good movie story without nudity, bad language, or gratuitous violence. Unless, of course, you're one of those wimps who call football gratuitous violence.
I can't tell you how disappointed I was that a very young Dick Vermeil (played a little stiffly by Greg Kinnear) didn't weep like a baby when Vince scored. For those of you young fans that didn't know, Vermeil coached the Eagles long before he coached the Rams and Chiefs.
Best scene in the movie is when Vince answers which team is his own, and which team he plays for. You'll recognize it. Football doesn't get any better than that. Life doesn't get any better than that. If only all of us could see things so clearly. You'll cheer. Way to go, Vince. You figured it out..Then.Don't read the next paragraph if you don't want to know how it ends...
He got the girl; made the game saving tackle, recovered the fumble, scored the game willing touchdown, all in the last 5 minutes of the movie. If it weren't real, it would be too hokey to believe.
First, it was a Texan rooting for Notre Dame (Rudy) Then, a Lubbock Coronado boy rooting for Odessa Permian (Friday Night Lights) And now, a Cowboys fan rooting for the Eagles They did it to me again. Hollywood and football: what a magical combination. Go see it. Find your team.