Excellent expression of a male fantasy

Rating: 10/10 (25 January 2019)

On the surface, the Vince Papale story is one that all boys playing unorganized football fantasize about. Papale was working as a part-time bartender in his home town of South Philadelphia when he attended a tryout being held by the Philadelphia Eagles. He survived the tryout, attended training camp and was one of the last players retained on the roster. Papale became a hero to the people of Philadelphia, as he was living out what was for many the ultimate fantasy. Voted captain of the special teams, he played in the NFL for three years before an injury forced him to retire.
The movie is exciting and uplifting, as all embodiments of fantasies should be. While it is based on a true story, there are some serious actions of poetic license taken. For example, in the movie there is the dramatic touchdown where Papale tackles the punt returner forcing a fumble and then recovers it, carrying it into the end zone for a touchdown. In fact, Papale never scored a touchdown in the NFL, although he did force a fumble on a punt return. He is also portrayed as a football novice when he attended the Eagles tryout when he had played for two years on the Philadelphia Bell of the World Football League. Therefore, he was not a complete unknown to the Eagle coaching staff. In the movie, Papale attends an open tryout where every nut with a football fantasy attended. In fact, his tryout was a private one to which he was invited.
While there is a lot of imagination put into the story, it is still one that uplifts you, for there are people that live or die in the virtual sense based on how well their home team performs. There is a lot of hometown pride inherent in people that are seeing the job market in their neighborhood collapsing due to changing economic conditions. Those aspects of the movie are very real.