Excellent, a Must See

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

"Everybody's All-American" brought forth a movie that can be seen as both a chick flick in terms of the steaming romantic chemistry between the two leading stars (Dennis Quaid and Jessica Lange) and plenty of football action for the guys to enjoy. The main character of the movie is centered around Gavin "The Gray Ghost" Grey (Dennis Quaid). "Everybody's All-American" succeeds in that the ideas featured had potential to be an extraordinary film, but Hollywood had to water it down immensely. The film scores high points in entertainment, but their welcome goes on too long.Based on a novel by Frank DeFord, the die-hard football fan can see through that this film is based loosely on the life of Billy Cannon. Both Grey and Cannon's stories both seem eerily similar to each other. The film center around Gavin Grey, who plays for the LSU Tigers, leading their team to the 1956 Sugar Bowl Championship. Even though not once, LSU was ever mentioned, but Cannon played for that team at the time.What makes this film enjoyable to watch is that the characters portrayed are both likable and well developed. Quaid shines as the star football running the "Gray Ghost" Gavin Grey. Lange is just adorable as Southern gal Babs. Timothy Hutton was at his very best as history professor Cake, John Goodman is believable as a football player who turns his life to gambling and Carl Lumbly puts in his performance as black football player who later becomes a business tycoon. It's always a great feeling deep inside to see such well developed characters and at the same time each and every one of them have a certain likeness that truly captures the spirit of this movie. By setting this film in the state of Louisiana, we realize that the South really loves their football. The look of the 1950's South captures a feel of nostalgia, though it's questionable if it was entirely accurate.The biggest problem I had with "Everybody's All-American" was that the two best characters were not the leading stars (though they did well), but Prof. Cake (Hutton) and Lawrence (Goodman) were the best of the ensemble, but were sadly underused and I wanted to see more of them. And even though Ghost and Babs have good chemistry between each other, there are several holes between them that make for a gripping relationship. For instance, what does Babs really see in the Gray Ghost and vice versa? We are left clueless as to how and why they are attracted to one another. However, the romantic angle is still a joy to watch.The fine ensemble cast carries the film splendidly, but falls short in terms of comprehension to what they're saying at times which could be due to the overdone technicalities of director Taylor Hackford.Hackford's direction is the weakest link in this film. He's trying to hard to make this movie ultra serious but at the same time, the characters are also clichéd. With newsreels and archive footages they aren't put to good use and is taken way too seriously. You can clearly point out which of the scenes are staged and which ones are actual highlights making it all seem out of place. Even the die-hard football fan will be taken off by this sloppy mess Hackford made.Overall in spite of it's flaws it is still an enjoyable film filled with plenty of football action and romance outside the gridiron.

First off, this is an OK film, no more, no less. I've never been much of a fan of Dennis Quaid, even though we hail from the same town. His essential cockiness, though, seems made for this part. Jessica Lange was, as always, very beautiful, even though she exhibits a bit of hard-edged brittleness. John Goodman turned in a very good performance. All three seemed a bit too old to pass for college kids, but hey, what're you gonna do when your film spans 25-plus years? The central themes were old, familiar, and a bit tired. In general, it seems that football movies are a lot harder to make than baseball movies, for obvious reasons. The action sequences were mostly done pretty well. Overall, this one is probably worth a Netflix rental, but don't spend any money on it.

Every city should have a movie filmed in it every 10-15 years. So much of Baton Rouge that was caught on film in this movie has changed. When Gavin runs out of the stadium and is standing by Mike the Tigers cage for instance. The cage has been replaced by a virtual palace, and Mike the IV is now Mike the V. The west side upper deck in tiger stadium, completely demolished and replaced, and an east side upper deck added. The man emceeing the Magnolia Queen contest has also since passed.Bonus Points: When Cake is standing on "Hallowed Ground" (then an empty lot, now a blockbuster)the sign behind him shows a construction project being planned for that spot. The building on the signs looks an awful lot like the Hilton (now Marriot) in Baton Rouge.

I noticed that during his comebackwith the Broncosthey showed a clip of getting knocked out of boundsby a Seattle Seahawk. Not quite sure but I believe that if he were to be knocked out of boundsby a Seahawk he would have had to have a 21 year N.F.L.career.Please correct me if i am wrong.All in all though I like the scenes from all the football clipsthey showed and that most of the players they showed were the real names of the players