Good Attempt but still lacking

Rating: 7/10 (10 December 2012)

Without a doubt, the movie "Remember the Titans" tries to depict the challenges and difficulties of racial integration after the Civil Rights Act was implemented. In the case of this movie, this film tries to show racism within a particular high school football team. Their attempt was promising but the movie's aim was not to show the racial harmony and problems but rather simply about football.
This movie is based on a true story that talks about an African American football coach named Herman Boone (played by Denzel Washington) who is hired by a Virginia High School during 1971 to coach the Titans on his first year in T.C. Williams High School replacing Bill Yoast (played by Will Patton) whom is beloved by the school. Both men are not happy with the situation and circumstances they are put into. But they agree that for the sake of the team, they must cooperate and achieve their goal. A great example would be when Yoast tells Boone to treat his players like marines rather than high school students and does so.
I thought that both Boone and Yoast were portrayed quite nicely, Boone does not show any sense of noble or arrogance and neither does Yoast show any signs of racism of being a racist for that matter. In fact, both characters show their ambition to win and how skilled they are at football. Another scene, which I personally enjoyed, was the ending where there was the closing touchdown, I felt that it resembled the end and victory over racism.
The Film somewhat historically accurate but I felt that there was a lot of drama throughout the film. Of course, Hollywood loves to alter certain parts of the story to make it more "interesting" or "compelling". It also seems that the film was "exaggerated" but overall, the film was quite accurate.
But there are some raising questions during the film, such as we could only see that the Whites are afraid of losing their positions in the team thus not wanting to play with the blacks, but what about the blacks themselves? Didn't they transfer from an all black school? This film shows that the white people are very possessive and want to resent the blacks, and that the blacks themselves are feeling grateful and happy due to transferring to a better school.
Another questioned raised is that what happened to the coach in the all blacks school? Why was Boone transferred to coach but not the coach from the all blacks school? This shows that the film has left out some possible information that might affect the movie dramatically.
"Remember the Titans" is a predictable and heart warming film with strong emotional themes and powerful music but there are some areas where the film was lacking such as stated before, over-exaggeration of dramatization and the limited solution of racism depicted during the film. Overall, I would give this film a rating of 7/10.
-Nicholas Chong