tries to be too cute

Rating: Null/10 (20 May 2001)

Forget the fact that this is billed as a racial underdog drama, and focus on the real plot: play oldies every 3 minutes and have big, bad football players sometimes sing these oldies every 5. Ugh, got old real quick. How many friggin' times do you expect to be able to fall back on the same damn thing and not end up in the desperation category? Here, let's try and look cute by throwing in a bunch of dancing and singing. What is this, sports movie or musical? And as far as the sports element, aggrevating as well. Washington, in his most unlikable role ever, works to death a team of high school pigskin kids. He quickly turns into a jerk, and I didn't care what happened to him or his team. And the constant, constant, CONSTANT in-fighting between the black and white players. Such tired, tired, tired scenes, and it's gosh damn endless! And of course the team kicks butt and Denzel is looked at as a Godsend...enough. The performances are decent enough (how the hell did journeyman Patton get a 2nd billed role in a film?!) but this predictable, cutesy fluff has been overpraised. And it's based on a true story? Doesn't make it any better. One smile I got from it was from the title. Made for a good joke: "Remember the Titans"? What is that, a film about condoms?