One Of The Year's Best

Rating: 10/10 (22 May 2005)

In a year of many bad movies (USA Today reported the year 2000 was one of the worst year for movies in 75 years), this was one of the year's best.
This movie received very little hype and fanfare compared to many box office "turkeys" of that year did. It seems as though Disney did not have very high expectations for this movie, considering the little promoting they did and release date they gave it. This was grossly underrated.
Denzel Washington was excellent as Coach Herman Boone. A highly qualified coach who is tough, but fair to his players. He has faced racism and discrimination throughout his life, is given the head coaching job at T.C. Williams high in Virginia, because of his race.
Will Patton as was wonderful as Coach Bill Yoast. Another highly qualified coach who will experience what Coach Boone has, as the head coaching job is taken away from him and takes a demotion as Assistant Coach to Boone, after the white players said they would sit out the season in out of loyalty to Coach Yoast, but mainly, due to their prejudice to Coach Boone.
the rest of the cast was good as well. Ryan Hurst as Gerry Bertier, Ryan Gosling as Alan Bosley, had to overcome their prejudices and fears towards their African-American teammates and coach, while Wood Harrris as Julius Campbell, and Donald Faison as Petey to name a couple, will have to deal with their teammates' prejudices I mentioned and come together with their white teammates to become a team. The cast was wonderful. I could go on and on about it, but it there's more to this movie than the cast.
Director Boaz Yakin seemed to capture the turbulent times of this era; The post Civil Rights Movement, integration of the public schools in the south and racism in particular. I almost felt like I was there, having to deal with this.
I liked the football scenes as well. Once again, I almost felt like I was there cheering on the Titans as they were going for the perfect season and their battle for the Virginia AAA state football title.
When I first saw this movie in the theater, I was taken in immediately and I said to myself I will add this DVD to my library. Needless to say, I have it.
Another interesting thing is, when this movie is shown on television, I'll watch it. Normally, I won't watch it because these movies have scenes edited out, parts of the dialog is bleeped or dubbed, due to the inappropriate scene, time and/or language content. In addition, you have to deal with those annoying commercial breaks.
The reason why I'll watch it is, the scenes that ended up on the editing floor for whatever reason on the theater and DVD version. On the latter. you can find it in the deleted scenes section on the bonus features of the DVD, but on the television version, those same deleted scenes, you can find them back in the movie. On a particular note, you can see Lucinda Jenney's only scene in the movie as Coach Yoast's ex-wife, Arleen Yoast, when she gave custody to their daughter Sheryl to him.
Another scene is where Julius and Gerry are at a barbecue and they are discussing their futures. Julius says he wants to go to Ohio State and play for then coach Woody Hayes. This is interesting, because I don't recall seeing that scene when I saw it in the theater and you will not find it on the DVD version of the movie or in the deleted scenes section.
Besides being one of the year's best films, this is also one of the best sports movies ever made.