Inspirational

Rating: 8/10 (15 October 2007)

This movie is about inspiration. It starts with a tragedy, in a true story the plane crash which killed nearly the entire Marshall University football team. Then, it deals with the reactions of everybody the tragedy touched.
When this movie deals with tragedy, it doesn't just make you get out your hankies. It shows real life how difficult it is to face, how it can take time to face it, & how people must eventually deal with it. This is not an easy thing to do. The recent Disney Film, fictional, The Bridge To Teribetha, does not do this same thing correctly when dealing with one persons death.
All the performances in this film are outstanding. It would be difficult to put anyones role in this above another's. Even the smaller supporting roles are done well. I was in high school when this really happened. This film has a clip of John Chancellor, former NBC News anchor, reporting on the plane crash early in the film.
As an inspirational film about sports, this is one of the better ones I have seen. The only thing I would add is at the end of the film, when Marshall wins it's first home game, I would add a clip of the same John Chancellor which I think I remember seeing after that first win. If I remember right, he reported it this way: "Today, Marshall University won a football game. While one win is not usually such a big event, after all Marshall has been through this past year, winning this one game means much more to Marshall than that."
This sums up the inspiration that is obviously put into this film, & how it really happened. To the folks who made the movie, We Are Marshall is much more than a story. This film, in the way it was made, shows a lot of caring in doing this story right on film, and it shows.
David Strathairn is excellent as the Marshall College President. Some viewers might remember him as Ira Lowenstein in A League of Their Own.