I remember

Rating: Null/10 (18 February 2005)

Although it was quite a few years ago when I watched Remember the Titan the first time, I do remember how good it is. When it came on TV, I wouldn't want to miss it, even when it came with the commercial interruptions. It was just as good the second time around, and there are new discoveries. For example, the first time I saw it, Ron Gosling (The Believer, Murder by Numbers, The Notebook) had not yet proved to be such a good actor.
What attracted me to the movie was the football, set around the time Joe Nameth took the Jet's through its most glorious season in snatching the Superbowl from the heavily favoured Baltimore Colts. But this is college football. In the movie, in a vital game when the opponents tried a shotgun, someone in the Titans quipped, "Who do they think they are? The New York Jets?" While the movie seems to concentrate on the Titan's defence, it was just a little before the time when the Minnesota Viking's defence, the "purple gang", became legendary. But then the Titans set an example for the NFL to follow, they had a "perfect" season, a feat the Miami Dolphins repeated in the NFL a few years later.
But this is more than football. It is a wonderful movie about racial harmony, uplifting, feel-good and touching. As one commenter so beautifully puts it, let the cynics sit out on the sidelines on this one, and groan about clichés and all that. This is a movie that will warm your heart, and don't let futile vanity cheat you out of enjoying it.
Nor is the movie a fairy tale. It is based on a true story. It is also realistic. The camp is an isolated environment where wonderful things can be made to happen. The kids themselves understand this when the come back to the "real world", as one puts it. But then, through determination and good will, they bring these wonderful things into the real world.
Finally, anything with Denzel Washing in it is worth watching.