Wonderful film, but NOT THE TRUTH!!!

Rating: 9/10 (6 July 2002)

On its own merits, Remember the Titans is a wonderful film with a good message, if somewhat Disney-fied one. The problem with this film is that IT COULD NOT BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH!!! After watching this movie, people will get the idea that Alexandria, VA is the poor, rural redneck bigot capital of the world, which is NOT true. I live in Alexandria, and it is a bustling, diverse, densely-crowded Washington DC Suburb located in metropolitan Northern Virginia (which is FAR different from rural Republican Southern Virginia); not a rustic Georgia swamp-town as it appears in the film. I also attend TC Williams (which looks nothing like the school featured in the film, and is in actuality one of the most culturally diverse schools in the US) and I met many of the players from the successful 1971 team at a school assembly around six months before the films release - it was not racial black-white tension as exaggerated in the film, but more of a long standing rivalry between the two city high schools, Francis Hammond and George Washington High Schools (which are both now Middle Schools) that caused issues in the team at the start of the season.
Even though the film strays from the true story, it is still worth watching for the superb acting (hats off to Denzel Washington yet again, along with the supporting cast) great cinematography, and good story, even being a bent truth of a story.