Class project. I was required to review the movie, and post it.

Rating: 7/10 (7 December 2008)

Movie Review: Remember the Titans Remember the Titans, released in 2000, is a heart-touching movie relating the game of football to the struggles of racial tension and friendship. Director Boaz Yakin uses just the right amount of drama and action to create a movie deserving a five star rating. Remember the Titans is a narration that not only tells a story to the viewer but it teaches a bit of a history lesson. Based on a true story set in 1971, Denzel Washington shows off his admirable acting skills as he plays Coach Boone who is named head coach of a football team that has recently integrated blacks and whites. While the teammates are more concerned about skin color than football practices, Coach Boone along with Assistant Coach Bill Yoast played by Will Paton, set out to teach them a lesson that is truly priceless.
The movie begins with a series of establishing shots as the Titans head off to Gettysburg College for a week of team bonding and football practices. Right from the start Boone forces the players to tolerate their teammates of another race by forcing them to not only sit together on the buses but also room together. Allowing their differences to affect the way they play the sport of football, at first the Titans are no team but rather individual players selfishly tossing around a football. Especially in the scenes where the players are butting heads, close ups on the actors faces are used to show frustration as well as the clash between races and the problems caused by the integration. After a couple days of grueling practices, constant bickering, and a tiring yet meaningful run to the Gettysburg battlefields, the players begin to understand the importance and meaning of equality. Yakin uses low-key lighting in the battlefield scene to show intensity and suspense. As the week progresses the Titans transform from simply football players to a football team. Just as any team has to work hard and communicate with each other the Titans learns to not only communicate but see their teammates for who they are, not by their skin color. Viewers watch as the Titans become a brotherhood, forming friendships, inside jokes, and an overall respect for each other. Actors such as Ryan Hurst and Wood Harris do a particularly good job of really showing the difficulties the team and town were facing. Upon returning to their small town of Alexandria, Virginia as a well bound team, it's up to them to prove to the rest of the town that all are equal, white or black and that the Titans are a winning team.
As the Titan's overcome the struggle of segregation and return back to town, it becomes very apparent that they're not at camp anymore. While the Titans work their way to the top, beating not only the opposing teams but leaving racial issues in the dust, they teach the rest of the town "how to trust the soul of a man, not the look of him." While the team takes on Marshall for the title it marks much more than the end of the movie, but rather the start of a new era. Denzel's intensity, Patton's gentleness and Hayden Pannettiere's comic relief, along with the all the actors make Remember the Titans the remarkable movie it is. Not only is it a movie that touches the heart, but one that people clearly put their heart into making, making it a movie well worth watching.