Highly watchable Hollywood football movie

Rating: 7/10 (26 February 2005)

Highly watchable, yes. It pushes all the right buttons, sure. But I am always so amazed by the seriousness of American sport movies... and the age of their players. Here, what look like thirty year old men compete for their one chance to be great athletes at a boot camp run by a Sergeant major-type coach straight out of the marines. This is life and death and your whole future rolled into one.
The only thing is, this is high school. The men are supposed to be seventeen year old boys. The coach is just an ordinary teacher. I think about the school I come from where the teachers have to do unpaid after school sports training for disenfranchised students who often have to be nagged, cornered and marched on to the field to get a complete team together.