Pretty Good

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Better Late Then Never

Absolutely amazing

As far as I am concerned I think that it is a good and interesting film. That's true there are too many characters. There are good music and good actors. At the beginning there was racism, at the end not anymore. I recommend the film.

This is a corny but still moving story of a football team becoming integrated in 1971, with the whites led by Will Patton and the blacks led by Denzel Washington. I know "blacks" and "whites" are obsolete terms but that's the way the movie pitches them.The performances are pretty good. Denzel Washington is always reliable and Will Patton has done some superb turns on film. He was my supporting player in one of his lesser efforts, "Everybody Wins." The team members vary in chops, with some better than others, but nobody torpedoes the film, not even the lovable and pathetic football player with the build of a sumo wrestler, the kid so fat he can be seen from outer space.The movie more or less divides itself into two halves. I found the first half more interesting than the second. The first half deals with bringing two mutually antagonistic groups together. The second half, a moral vacuum, deals with winning the Pan-Tidewater and Okefenokee High School Championship or something, and not an opportunity to stir the rabid enthusiasm of the crowd or to milk a tear out of the audience is missed.It's hard to believe that the philosopher William James once described sports as "the moral equivalent of war." You know -- get that pent up anger out of your system in a peaceful and rule-bound manner? I don't think he'd make that argument today, not with riots so common after soccer games that England banned them, and not with a dispute over soccer -- what IS it about soccer? -- having provided a trigger for the so-called Football War between El Salvador and Guatamala. Three thousand people died.I don't want to get too far off the gridiron here but let me add that Denzel Washington is the first black coach of the Titans, the high school football team, most of whose members look old enough to have been held back for four or five years. How does Washington run the team? Like Marine Corps boot camp, right out of "Full Metal Jacket." He's a real hard-ass. Color means nothing to him. He's pitiless. And his ruthlessness lends the story some meaning. Let me introduce some experimental evidence for that claim.(1) The famous "Robber's Cave Experiment" by Muzafer Sheriff. Sheriff brought together two antagonistic groups of matched twelve-year-old boys, gangs that had been labeled the Eagles and the Rattlers. They hated each other. Then they were both faced with a difficult task that could only be achieved by cooperation. Sheriff called it a "superordinate goal." It resolved the antagonism. I'm simplifying this but it's easily Googled. And I refer you to Ronald Reagan's musing that if the earth were invaded by UFOs it would draw the disputatious nations of the world together. (2) A 1959 study by Aronson and Mills that demonstrated that the tougher the initiation rite, the more group loyalty you get. By browbeating them so mercilessly Washington enhanced the solidarity of the Low-Country and Panhandle Titans, blacks and whites together. Basic training aims at the same end, and the harder the training, the greater the loyalty. Just being in the Armed Forces is not enough. You have to have your butt kicked. It's why you sometimes hear, "Once a Marine, always a Marine," but never, "Once a Coast Guardsman, always a Coast Guardsman." There's an element missing from the story, though. We see a lot of white antagonism towards blacks but very little in the way of black solidarity. Many African-Americans have built a wall around themselves and punish each other for associating too closely with white people. A hint of that reality would have turned this into an edgy adult movie instead of something that resembles a Hallmark special.The direction is okay. The football scenes are exciting and every impact of shield-clad body with shield-clad body is accompanied by an explosive WHOMP on the sound track. The same effect is applied recklessly to a football pass landing in a runner's arms. The musical score is loud and signals with reasonable precision exactly what emotion is expected of you during a given scene.

Remember the Titans (2000): Dir: Boaz Yakin / Cast: Denzel Washington, Will Patton, Ryan Hurst, Kip Pardue, Ryan Hurst: True story set in 1971 that recycles a plot that has been done millions of times since The Bad News Bears. Title refers to reflection upon something great, which isn't this film. The theme is racism where two schools will blend the whites and the blacks and the community is hostile towards it. Denzel Washington moves into the community from North Carolina to coach football. Numerous players threaten to quit because their current coach may be leaving. Predictable elements occur such as fights over race as well as Washington winning everybody over and gaining respect. Directed by Boaz Yakin who, despite having the true story element, does not have a screenplay that inspires anything but sympathy. Washington is a tremendous actor but he is basically wading through clichés and story structure done a hundred times over. That means that he is merely reciting what others having done either better or worse than him. Flat supporting roles by Will Patton, Ryan Hurst and Kip Pardue, and a host of other actors who are led to believe that this sh*t is special because it is a sports film starring Denzel. Patton in particular plays that uptight coach uneasily impressed. Strong themes of sportsmanship, friendship, endurance, honor, exposing racism, and Xeroxed storytelling. Score: 3 / 10

This inspiring drama written by Gregory Allen Howard and directed by Boaz Yakin is based on the true story of a Virginia high school football team and the two coaches, one black and one white, who led them during one season to great triumphs both on and off the field. As a team, they learned to practice reverence. "Remember the Titans" is set in Virginia, where in 1971 high school football was everything to the people of Alexandria. But when the local school board was forced to integrate an all-black school with an all-white school, the very foundation of football's great tradition was put to the test. Herman Boone (Denzel Washington), a young black coach new to the community, was hired as head coach of the T.C. Williams High Titans over Bill Yoast, a white man with several years seniority, a steadfast following and a tradition of winning. As the two men learned to work together, they found they had much more than football in common. Both were men of integrity and honor, with a strong work ethic.Although from vastly different backgrounds, these two coaches not only molded a group of angry, unfocused boys into a dynamic, winning team, but also helped guide them into becoming responsible young men. Their determination to work together and win brought together a town torn apart by racial prejudice and intolerance.Remember the Titans shows how radical respect — or, to use the religious term, reverence — is a flinty antidote to the virus of racial hatred and bigotry. In a variety of wonderful scenes, the filmmakers show us how these black and white boys learn to respect the inner beauty of each other's souls. The sport of football(rugby) becomes a basis for racial harmony and common effort. In addition to the stirring performances by Denzel Washington(as Coach Boone) and Will Patton(as Coach Yoast) as sterling moral leaders, mention must also be made of Ryan Hurst as Bertier and Wood Harris as Big Ju, two of the better football players whose interracial friendship serves as a galvanizing example for the rest of the Titans. The extent of the racial hatred shown might hit some people a bit too hard, but having never really known the extent of the problem, I'm definitely not in a position to comment on it. A mention must also be made of the sublime music direction by Trevor Rabin, better known for his stint as the guitarist in the British progressive rock band Yes. He weaves in beautiful lines of music, intelligently composed to never sway the viewers attention while reinforcing each and every move the script writer envisioned, making this a truly complete movie.