I watched We Are Marshall for the first time on cable yesterday just before watching the NFC Championship game between the Packers and the Giants. Sadly, the movie was better than the game.
The good news and the bad news are the same thing here: you get what you expect you'll get. You expect that you'll get a moment of genuine emotional devestation when you witness a plane crash that instantly wipes out a successful college football program, not to mention husbands, fiancees, sons and local patrons.
You get the anguish when you watch the running back's father and girlfriend stall in their attempts to put their lives back together.
You get the hope when the college president hires a bizarre, down-home upstart of a coach to assemble a new team out of the ashes.
I appreciated the fact that all of the sentiment in this film was as clear-eyed and genuine as it's ever been in a sports movie. Hell, I got choked up just when and where I was supposed to. What keeps this film from being an excellent movie, of course, is that the director, McG, found no fresh way of doing what's been done so many times before (just like my poor Packers...ugh!) It's "guy flick" manipulation in its classic form, but certainly not art.
And as far as the acting goes, I was moved by Matthew Fox but found Matthew McConaughey to be a bit ridiculous. But my favorite performance was given by the actor playing a teammate left behind from the now-deceased team due to an injury. His struggle to handle being one of the few left behind and put his love of the team in front of his grief provided this slick sports tear-jerker with its soul.
2.5 out of 4
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