Decent but the best the genre has to offer? I really don't think so!

Rating: 6/10 (11 January 2009)

I'm actually quite fond of sports movies, no matter how predictable they always are. I'm also a bit fond of American Football and occasionally watch a match on TV. I even watch the Super Bowl, even though it gets aired literally in the middle of the night for me, till early in the morning.
So this movie sounds like a perfect one for me to watch, since it features ingredients that I like. I really wasn't impressed with the movie though. It lacked a bit of everything, making it just a bit too much to regard this movie as an above average one. It lacked in good sports moment, it lacked in character development and it lacked in overall credibility, even though the movie in essence got based on a true story and real-life persons.
For an movie focusing on American Football it surely is missing some good match sequences. During the matches you hardly ever see any wide-shots, making it hard to figure out how the game is progressing and what exactly is going on and who is doing what. It's not remotely as adrenaline pumping all as portrayed in some other and much better movies, involving American Football.
But of course American Football is not the main essence of the movie. It's all about the racial issues. The movie is set in the early '70's and focuses on the State's first racial mixed Football high school team. Of course in the beginning they have difficulties working as a team together at first and the different groups don't accept and respect each other. I don't think I need to say how this is changing in the movie though later on and how the story is progressing. That's one of the difficulties of the movie. It's formulaic and predictable. Not just the story but also the different characters and their reactions toward each other. Basically every character within this movie is one big stereotype.
This brings me to another problem of the movie; It's characters. Because it's all so predictable and because the characters are such stereotypes you'll also feel hardly involved with any of them. The movie besides really doesn't feature the best character development I have ever seen in a movie.
Nevertheless they are still being somewhat made interesting by the actors that are portraying them. The movie has some big names in it, such as Denzel Washington and Will Patton. It besides feature some new faces, that are now some well known established actors, such as Kip Pardue, Hayden Panettiere (as an 10-year old in her toughest role out of her career yet), Kate Bosworth and Ryan Gosling. Denzel Washington is especially great, like always.
The movie is a bit too short though. Sequences often feel rushed and lots of things are taking for granted, just to keep the movie going at all times. This is of course also something typical for a Jerry Bruckenheimer production but in this particular case it doesn't help the movie much. They could had easily resolved this by just letting the movie be like 15 minutes longer.
It's also a pretty 'clean' movie. It's a Disney produced movie, so there are no swearing characters, no sleeping around with the cheerleaders and the movie is heavy on its themes and morals, such as acceptance and team work. A supposedly homosexual character and a real fat and slight backward guy are almost immediately being accepted into the group of tough pride, athletic, all-American youngsters. A makes the movie just a bit too 'clean' and therefore at the same time also really not the most credible movie around.
It's overall a maintaining movie that is certainly watchable, with a fine style and acting performance. But it's also a real lacking and far from perfect one, in more than a couple of ways.
6/10
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