Hail to the Zel

Rating: Null/10 (23 December 2014)

Boaz Yakin's "Remember the Titans" stars Denzel Washington as Herman Boone, an African American coach who attempts to form a racially diverse football team at a high school in Northern Virginia. As it's 1971, and racial prejudices run rampant, Boone encounters various set-backs.
No points for guessing how "Titans" unfolds. Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and Walt Disney Pictures, this is a hokey, sentimental, formulaic film, in which every emotion is accompanied by violins and in which every point is communicated via sledgehammer.
Still, "Titans" means well, and Denzel Washington is always watchable. Combining the nobility/sanctimony of Sidney Poitier, and the ghetto-street-cred of a young Eddie Murphy, Washington's always been a kind of post-racial distillation of everything African American. More than this, though, he's always oozed movie-star charisma. Give Denzel a monologue, rant or meaty bit of dialogue, and he'll dazzle you some thespian pyrotechnics, before hitting you with that patented laugh and bouncing off with his iconic walk, one arm dead at his side. If "Remember the Titans" is tolerable, it's solely because of the Zel.
6.9/10 – Worth one viewing.