Would be a better movie if it were true.

Rating: 6/10 (12 April 2006)

In 1969, there was a survey taken that rated the majority of Americans' opinion of the Ku Klux Klan as being more despicable than the Viet Cong. Yet judging by the inability of many communities of the 1970's to accept integrated schools, such a sentiment would seem hard to believe. I passed up numerous chances to watch this movie, and when I finally saw it on The Disney Channel(of all places), I realized I missed a good one. Boston and Detroit weren't the first battlegrounds for school integration in the 1970's, but even if Alexandria, Virginia wasn't one of them, southern cities were just as hostile towards it as they were in the 1950's and '60's. I had a glowing review planned for this movie until I saw some of the user comments here, and I almost changed my mind.
Denzel Washington plays as Herman Boone, an African-American coach, hired on the basis of affirmative action who faces a great deal of resentment for it, especially from former coach Bill Yoast(Will Patton), who is demoted to defensive coach. From the beginning, Boone makes it clear that he's a coach first, and not that much of an activist. Yoast's football-crazed daughter(Hayden Paneittiere), is such an outstanding character, that if this wasn't at least loosely based on a true story, you'd have to make someone like her up.
Needless to say, most of the kids don't get along with each other, but Boone is determined to make sure that ends at training camp, and it does, which nearly creates a rift between first string Q.B. Gerry Bertier(Ryan Hurst), and his girlfriend(Kate Bosworth). What we eventually learn is that there's a sinister plot to make sure the integration fails both on the team and at school in general. Boone finds that he can't lose a single game or else he's fired. So, being the determined coach that he is, he wins every single game. However Yoast finds his white friends are plotting to revoke his membership in the local hall of fame if he doesn't agree to let them dump Boone, so they rig the next game.
Big Julius(Wood Harris) sounds a great deal like Mr. T when he tells an opposing player, that he'd better get used to being on the ground.
As Louie Lastik, Ethan Suplee does a complete 180-degree reversal from his role in "American History X(1998)" as a kid from New Jersey who LOVES black culture! This is a kid who knows segregation is stupid and pointless. If he were a kid of anytime since the late-1980's he'd be the kind of kid who drives a pimped-out full-size sedan with huge speakers and chrome dubs.
I don't think the movie suggested that Sunshine(Kip Pardue) really was a homosexual, but that his fellow students just taunted him simply because he was such a hippie. Aside from this, I can't really say anything about this movie that hasn't been said before. Even if the events of this movie didn't exactly take place the way the movie depicted, it was still memorable and glorious, clichés or no clichés.