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Remember the Titans Review
-by
Andrew Goletz
Note
to the Academy: Remember the Titans come Oscar time!
Remember
the Titans was actually a movie I wasn't too interested in seeing.
After the recent string of football movies: Varsity Blues (my personal
favorite), Any Given Sunday, and The Replacements I was worried that this
genre was going to be exploited more than the teen horror films of late. I'm
happy to say that this is one of the best of the bunch.
Remember
the Titans takes place 20 yrs in Virginia. It's a racially charged
time and a racially charged location. Denzel Washington plays couch Herman
Boone, who's the
'token' minority assigned to take over the Titans football program to
appease
the civil rights movement. The schools are being integrated. The
times are changing and the status quo isn't happy about it. Coach Boone is
taking
the job from Coach Yoast, played by the always wonderful Will Patton. Coach
Yoast
is no slouch, either. He's had a string of winning seasons and is on the
ballot to enter the Hall of Fame. The apparent promotion/demotion does
nothing to ease the tension filled town who are already skeptical of
integration in general.
Titans
doesn't pull any punches when it comes to dealing with the racial
overtones of the story and that's a welcome relief. There are no easy
answers here. Does Boone deserve the job he's been given? Yes. He comes
with a great track record of coaching. Does Coach Yoast deserve to be removed?
No. He's a legend in the town, a successful coach in his own right and a
good man. So what to do? Rather than pull back away from the issue
completely or have the actors indulge in over-acted monologues, the director
chooses to confront the issues head on.
Coach
Yoast’s former players (all white) resent Boone taking over the team and
resent having to share the field, their team, their lives with the black
players. It's not going to be easy to pull this team together. Boone’s
strategy
is similar to that of a drill instructor. There's an incident early
on in the film where the two busses bound for football camp are divided with
the white players on one bus and the black players on the other. Denzel's
character forces the team to separate by position: Defensive or Offensive,
not by color. Throughout camp the coach has the difficult task of trying to
have his players learn to respect one another while coming together as a
football team. Matters are made more difficult when it's discovered that the
powers that be have given Boone the job only to stop the outcry from civil
rights groups and will fire him as soon as he loses a game. Boone
solution to this is to try and not lose any games.
It's
an ensemble movie made up of new faces with the exception of Washington and
Patton and its fascinating to watch them flesh out their characters throughout
the film. People don't have dramatic changes of heart because they need to
kiss and make up within 2 hrs, but there is growth, and there are as many
friendships made as there are betrayals.
The
action on the football field is well choreographed and hard hitting, but
when it comes down to it, the movie is a about a lot more than football,
it's about ignorance, and tolerance and learning to overcome stereotypes.
The astonishing thing was that this takes place in our generation and we
really haven't learned that much, have we.
Great
acting, good action, and a fine message = a brilliant movie and the
first football movie with heart since Rudy.
Rating:
4 Griffons (out of 4)
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