Recently I rewatched one of my favorite football movies of all time, this movie happens to be Remember the Titans. This classic has Denzel Washington starring in the movie as the head coach (Herman Boone), and many other famous actors like a young Ryan Gosling playing a football player. This movie took place in 1971, at T.C. Williams High School the same year white and african-american students integrated schools. The team had to figure out how to bond and fight through racial adversity while trying to figure out how to play football with one another at the same time.
Early on in the movie we see star linebacker Gary Bertier and his fellow white teammates have a hatred towards his new african-american teammates. Because of the fact that the two groups could not seem to get head coach Herman Boone took charge and made the two groups start to create friendships. By the end of the team’s training camp the team was unified and the boys acted like there was no difference between them.
After the team got back home from training camp they were woken back up to the real world. School was just beginning, meaning that racial tensions were at its highest making it even harder for the team to function. Coach Boone felt the pressure when he received threats that if he lost a game that he’d be fired since he was african-american. The players did the best they could to keep themselves unified, but people around them didn’t make it easy to do so. For example, after a game some of the players wanted to get food in town. Since some of them were black, they were refused to eat causing them to get upset.
One of the most interesting relationships I found in the movie was between Gary Bertier and Julius Campbell. The two played defense together so naturally they started to get along after long summer practices. Gary was the captain of the team so he had to lead by example, Bertier and Campbell helped the Titans have one of the best defenses in the nation. I admired these two because without them I believe the team would not have been as successful. The team looked up to the two and felt they had to follow their lead so the team would win games. If the team did not come together then the team would not have won as many games and their would be no movie about them.
After winning their semi-final game, the team gets back to town and most players decide to head home when star player Gary Bertier is paralyzed in a car accident. The team is heart broken and are very upset for Gary. We can see how far the two groups have come since the beginning of the movie when Julius walks into Gary’s hospital room, and Gary states “ Alice, Are you blind? Can’t you see the family resemblance? That’s my brother”. This is a pivotal point in the movie because we can see that the two sides are totally unified as we see Gary considering Julius his brother.
The scene emphasizes the message of the movie that if a group of people want something bad enough, they will work as a group and be able to stop at nothing in order to get it. The boys in this movie could have easily given up when they were presented with problems throughout the season. But since the boys were very strong, they decided to ignore all the problems and help unify the town by playing football together. Overall I would rate this movie GOOD GOOD because it has so many good messages throughout the movie, and because of how good the acting was in the movie.
Lots of strong and SPECIFIC analysis in this review, Matt! You’ve zoomed in on specific scenes and your paragraphs help to focus your review on those specific choices. Really like the choice to include a specific quote that really SHOWS how much the characters mean to each other (without relying on just TELLING us that they care about each other). Keep pushing the evaluative tone in terms of the filmmaking-- lots of good stuff about the film (product), but what of the filmmaking (i.e. choices) of the director, performers, etc.? That will help to elevate the writing and deepen the analysis. Strong title!
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