powerful drama

Rating: Null/10 (22 September 2001)

Finally - a reason to boycott Disney that actually makes sense. As I hunkered down to watch the DVD version of `Remember the Titans' - a bowl of popcorn in one hand and a diet soda in the other - what did I discover, to my amazement and horror, but that there was NO widescreen edition of the film anywhere to be found on the disc! As a lover of movers, I long ago made a pact with myself that I would try to watch every movie in its purest possible form and that includes seeing it with its original theatrical ratio in tact. What good is watching a movie when up to half its original picture is missing? That is why I love DVD so much. It almost always provides us with that option. Watching a film that has been panned-and-scanned to fit the requirements of a square TV screen is as anathema to me as watching a film spliced-and-diced to meet `broadcast standards' or to make room for oodles of mind-numbing commercials selling products you wouldn't want even if they were given to you free of charge. All this is prelude to saying that the review you will be reading from here on out is based on at best 90% of the movie that was shown in theatres around the country (and that's a conservative estimate). Yes, I know there is a widescreen DVD version of the film on the market. My point is trying to fathom why Disney feels the need to separate its full and wide screen editions when many of us may not have access to both, since we often find ourselves at the mercy of numbskull video storeowners who wouldn't know a jump cut from a freeze frame if their lives depended on it. Furthermore, once a person gets home with a video, how many of us are going to want to go through the hassle of returning to the store to pick up the widescreen version? Get a clue, Disney!
`Remember the Titans' is a near-perfect film for young people to see. Not only does it open their eyes to just how recently - a mere 30 years ago - blatant institutionalized racism was woven into the fabric of many segments of American society, but the film shows them just how far we've come in rectifying that situation in a very short while. Stylistically, `Remember the Titans' emerges as an effective distillation of two sure-fire popular genres: the inspirational true-life sports story and the inspirational consciousness-raising racial drama. Although the more cynical among us may feel a bit `inspirationed' out by the time the film's closing credits go rolling by, the rest of us will probably find ourselves dewy-eyed and emotionally uplifted by the experience.
Based on a true story, `Remember the Titans' takes us back to the year 1971 when a high school in Alexandria, Virginia - like schools all over the South - was just beginning to cope with the hot button, highly emotional issue of court ordered desegregation. Into this hornet's nest of bigotry and rancor steps Herman Boone, a black football coach, hired to replace Bill Yoast, a top-notch coach who has led his team to no fewer than 15 championship seasons. Credit `Remember the Titans' for tackling this issue in a unique way. By acknowledging the unfairness done to Yoast (ironically, in the name of `fairness'), the film makes the reaction of some of the whites at least comprehensible. Few films of this type seem willing to delve into the moral complexity surrounding the sensitive issue of racism and choose instead to paint their characters literally as well as figuratively in black-and-white terms. `Remember the Titans' doesn't do that. We are allowed to see the issue from the white people's view as well - and to understand a bit where they too are coming from. Indeed, the basic theme of `Remember the Titans' is that anyone can change, given the proper chance and the set of circumstances necessary to bring it about.
It is with this set of circumstances that `Remember the Titans' most concerns itself, as it chronicles the gradual but inexorable change that takes place not only in the individuals involved but in the community as a whole. The amazing thing, too, is that `Remember the Titans' manages to do all this without resorting to the use of a single four-letter expletive - an accomplishment that is not only rare in this day and age: it is positively unique! This, along with the salutary theme, makes `Remember the Titans' ideal viewing for schools and youth groups as well. Director Boaz Yakin and writer Gregory Allen Howard are to be commended for crafting a film that is believable, fast moving and emotionally powerful all at the same time. The actors are all superb in their various roles, with Denzel Washington, as always, serving as the solid center holding the whole project in place.
`Remember the Titans' could be dismissed as just another cliché-ridden, feel-good film designed to appease a smug, self-congratulatory liberal audience, making them feel superior by confirming their own goodness. If it is such a film, so be it. When a reminder of our common humanity comes along that is as good as `Remember the Titans,' the cynics will just have to be content to sit this one out and bitch from the sidelines.