An okay football movie in my book

Rating: 7/10 (2 February 2007)

With the Superbowl coming up, I decided to watch Remember The Titans. I knew it was about high school football and dealt with race. It was based on a true story in 1971 which involved integration of both black and white students into one school. I found it quite interesting.
Denzel Washington plays Herman Boone. He is brought into the school to replace Bill Yoast (Will Patton) as head coach of the high school football team the Titans. Yoast is upset at first, but then he decides to stay on as defensive coordinator of the Titans, and together these two men find away to get through their differences and bring a football team of both black and white students together as winners. Both give very good performances
The young cast is also splendid, especially Wood Harris as Julius and Ryan Hurst as Gerry Bertier. These two are the team captains of the Titans, and they are the first to break through their discrimination against one another and become fast friends. Honorable mention should also be given to Hayden Panettiere as Bill Yoast's young daughter Sheryl.
What makes this film work though is how race is not one sided. You see the good and bad from all sides. A recent movie that did just this same thing was Crash from 2005.
Now for the bad. There were some things in Remember the Titans that just never quite fit. The character of Ronnie "Sunshine" Bass (even though it was a decent performance by Kip Pardue) was one, and all the singing was another. Was Sunshine gay or not? There's one moment where you think it's true, but then afterward it's never really explained. The singing that was used in the movie also went a little too far and distracted somewhat from the movie. Other than that, this was a pretty good film.