"Hoop Dreams" it ain't.

Rating: 6/10 (24 January 2010)

Whatever the real story behind the film story of this movie (i.e., upper middle-class white family taking in and propelling a poor - but physically massive - black youth to football success) I didn't especially care for the film. One should read the book of the Blind Side to get the real story that sparked this movie.
As for the movie, itself, it seems to be from the same attitude that brought us "Ozzie and Harriet", as well as "Father Knows Best", on TV in the 50's and early 60's when white people ruled the earth. This current movie, though, is not about those TV families. It's really about the White, Southern, God of high-school football, and if it takes a hulking, disadvantaged black boy to keep that image of God going, then so be it.
For a less romanticized, but more objective, view of disadvantaged black athletes in a white, Christian, school environment you should compare this movie with the classic movie "Hoop Dreams" (reviewed in IMDb at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110057/)
I'm very glad to see Sandra Bullock win awards for her performance in this film, but keep in mind the awards are for her, not for this movie.