good, very good

Rating: 9/10 (4 December 2007)

You don't have to be a Notre Dame fan, or even a football fan to like this movie, although it certainly makes it more fun to watch. This one gave me a good look at the impact that this particular school has (or had) when it comes to football in the United States. It's kind of hard to believe that all this actually happened at South Bend way back in 1975. Does that mean that it never happened anywhere else at all in history? That's kind of off-topic here, but it was good to watch nonetheless. This movie shows you what can happen when you decide you want to do something bad enough and all the (*fun stuff*) you sometimes have to go through to get there. I though Sean Astin did a stellar job in the lead role, he was a little weird here and there, but I think one of the interesting points about this movie is that in South Bend (and a lot of other US cities), football takes precedence over just about everything. I was also surprised to see Vince Vaughn's name in the credits as I definitely did not recognize him in the scrimmage scene. These players aren't professionals, even though some do make it that far, I thought Rudy did a good job shedding some light on how the sport of football rises to the top in terms on national pastimes in the nation. Also, it would have been cool to have actually been there to see the real Rudy make that sack and get carried off the field, but I'm not that old! The one thing I might have changed in this movie was to make the score within a TD or a FG vs. Georgia Tech and put Rudy in on 3rd or 4th down (even if that isn't the way it actually happened). I recommend that anyone liking a good sports story take the time to watch this and if you happen to be a fan of the Fighting Irish then you march over to your local video store and dish out the $20 to bring it home and watch it over and over and over again!