Sublime

Rating: 9/10 (24 December 2006)

Marshall University must be an extraordinary place in Huntington, West Virginia. In the middle of the campus is a fountain that is cut off once a year to honor the football team members who perished in a plane crash in 1970. The community of scholars pauses to honor the young athletes and the coaches who left their football team to struggle with only three varsity players surviving to play on the 1971 team. Of course, Marshall has to regroup and recover slowly from such an immense tragedy.There is some thought at first to simply forfeit the next season. But, gradually Marshall rises from the ashes to reclaim its football greatness. The film includes images and music from the early 1970s to bring this time back 35 years later. Matthew McConaughey and Matthew Fox are the coaches of the new team, who give much skill and strength to their portrayals. "We Are Marshall" becomes a chant among them similar to the effect that "Never Again" became for the Jews after the Holocaust. The meaning in both cases is the same courageous defiance in the face of death: "We Will Survive and Thrive Again."