Let's be realistic.

Awesome Movie

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

Ernie Davis is 10 years old in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. He stutters but runs really fast. He lives with his grandfather Pops (Charles S. Dutton). His mother Marie Davis returns telling him that she's remarried. They move to the white town of Elmira, NY. Years later, Syracuse University football head coach Ben Schwartzwalder (Dennis Quaid) is looking to replace Jim Brown who has just signed with the Browns. With Jim Brown's help, he signs the wide-eyed Davis (Rob Brown) who would go on to become the first negro to win the Heisman Trophy.This is a functional biopic taking on all the familiar ideas. It is beautifully shot. Rob Brown has a wide-opened personality with his bright-eye performance. The biggest problem for me is that the movie recruits the audience with a more interesting character in Jim Brown. I can't help but think that Jim Brown has the more compelling story. There isn't anything wrong but there isn't necessarily anything new. It's a workmanlike effort.

Even though I knew absolutely nothing about Ernie Davis, the tragic young hero of this biopic, as I watched this film the suspicion that I was watching one of those largely fictionalised accounts that typifies the kind of biopics Hollywood churned out in its golden age kept growing with each predictable emotional peak and plot twist. A quick scan of some of the comments on the film's message board quickly confirmed those suspicions.Chronological impossibilities aside, this film could have easily been made in the 30s or 40s. Ernie Davis - and every other black character in this film - is filled with a kind of pious nobility that set them apart from most white characters in the film - apart from those insightful enough (such as gruff old coach Burgess Meredith, erm, Jon Voight - no, Samuel L. Jackson… Gene Hackman? Dennis Quaid!) to see the boy's football talent (but not his uniqueness as an individual) . The whites in this film are blindly racist West Virginians or gung-ho jocks or wise-cracking sports reporters. Everything is black and white, you might say.The film's well-made, the acting is good (especially Rob Brown as Davis), and there's no doubting the sincerity of the writers or the source material. But by following conventional biopic story lines and blatantly distorting certain incidents and situations in order to make a 'better' film, the makers severely dilute its impact and bring into question every aspect, thus making it unreliable as a 'true story.' It might also perhaps have been wiser to finish the film after Syracuse's victory over Texas at the Rose Bowl, with titles to inform the viewer of Davis's winning of the Heisman Trophy and the illness that cruelly cut short his life, rather than continuing another half-an-hour after its emotional and inspirational peak.

When studios turn back the clock in movies, they expose the excessive baggage which accompanied our bigoted and ignorant past. Audiences living in the present decade can observe all of the social ills of those bygone eras. Social problems in America have all but been buried, yet irritatingly they surface when our society is reminded not every American has learned the lessons of the past. Thus it is with this superior movie called " The Express." The great Ernie Davis is played by Rob Brown as an adult and Justin Martin in his youth. Both actors do a incredible job. Dennis Quaid plays Ben Schwartzwalder, the inspirational coach who does an exceptional job. The icon Jim Brown is played by Darren Henson and Charles Dutton is William Davis Sr. Although the film traces the life of Ernie Davis, it only highlights the major events, tragedies and triumphs of the all star player at Saracues University. The movie is inspirational on many levels and touches the viewer with the most dramatic obstacles such as racism and segregation. Indeed a personal meeting with the late great John F. Kennedy is sure to evoke positive memories. Throughout the entire movie one is offered a blunt eye-view of our most brutal social affliction and one can only hope our great nation will one day make it obsolete. Easilly recommended to all audiences. ****

The Express is an excellent movie based on a true story about the life of college football hero Ernie Davis, the first African-American to win the Heisman Trophy. For those of you who haven't seen it I won't say anything else about the movie. Because The Express is one those movies you don't want to know too much about before seeing it. I'm glad I didn't know too much about it because I was very impressed with this one because the Express was definitely much better than expected. The film does a great job of making you care about Ernie and most of the other characters who may not be in it much but they make the best of their limited screen time. The whole cast turn in great performances especially Rob Brown as Ernie Davis and Dennis Quaid as his tough but sympathetic college football coach. The rest of the supporting cast are admirable in their roles too. Mostly everything in this movie worked from the intense realistic football sequences to the drama of Ernie's inspirational life. The pacing was a little slow at times but the rest of the film made up for it's one flaw. Overall The Express was so much better than expected and is a movie based on a true story that deserves to be told which is brought to life because of the exceptional performances by the cast. Well done.