Touchdown - Sein Ziel ist der Sieg

This is a great film about going for your dreams and never giving up. No matter who tells you that you can't do it, no matter how unlikely the chances are, no matter what, make sure you go for your dreams and do everything that you can make them come true.

Sean Astin delivers one of his best performances to date. He plays the character of Rudy Ruettiger perfectly! He was an excellent choice for the role and he deserves a great deal of credit for his work (as does the true life Rudy). The rest of the cast was quite good as well; Jon Favreau, Ned Beatty, Lili Taylor, Charles Dutton, Robert Prosky, and Vince Vaughn (in one of his first roles). All of the supporting cast was excellent.

If you like inspirational movies, or just movies about football (although there is much more to this movie than just football), then I highly recommend you see this film. I hope that you enjoy it. Thanks for reading,

-Chris

If this movie doesn't get you motivated, then something is wrong with you. This movie proves that good things happen to people who work hard and don't except the circumstances they are dealt. I've seen this movie more than 30 times in my life, and i still cant get through the end of this movie without getting tears in my eyes. Another thing this movie teaches you is to listen to the people in your life who believe in you and want you to succeed, don't listen to the people who want you to fail and constantly remind you that your going to fail. "The best revenge is success." One of my favorite quotes comes from this movie as well, when the coach dan devine tells rudy and the rest of the team that "Nobody, and i mean nobody, comes into our house and pushes us around."

What can I say? I've seen the movie three times, and each time I was moved by the story of the kid who wouldn't let his dream die.

Even though I grew up Protestant in Texas and loved the Longhorns, I reveled in the history and the tradition of Notre Dame football. While I was in junior high and high school, I read lots of books on the history of college football, and naturally Notre Dame was a prominent part of each book. I can only imagine how strong a pull Notre Dame would have had for a football-loving boy in a Catholic family in the Midwest in the '50s and '60s. I thought the filmmakers did a reasonable job of showing enough about the conflicts in Rudy's life without getting mired in a lot of subplots that in my opinion would've detracted from the storyline.

I like the fact that they spent so much time actually developing the story of how he struggled to get to become a Notre Dame student. A lot of filmmakers might've opted to focus on the actual Notre Dame experience, which I think would've made the film a lot less effective.

Anyway, the music was wonderful, Sean Astin gave a great but understated performance, all the football sequences were real enough to make you wince, my wife who knows next to nothing about football or Notre Dame loved the movie, and it made me want to head to South Bend someday and take in a game.

Why do so many great sports films (Breaking Away, Hoosiers, and Rudy) take place in the upper Midwest? Just a random musing...

And here's a little factoid that to the best of my knowledge is still correct--Terry Gannon, who played on North Carolina State's national championship basketball team in the early '80s and now is a sports broadcaster, has the actual helmet that the real-life Daniel Reuttiger wore in the game.

To be completely honest, I was actually impressed with this film. It is sweet, but there is an honesty and a strong sense of realism at the heart of this film, which to me, provides the base of its appeal. "Rudy", unlike the majority of films about athletes, paints a picture of the real everyman (basically, the jock who isn't a jock) and it does so in a way that is plausible from start to finish. Working hard, eating, breathing and sleeping the game does not mean that you will wind up the star quarterback. Rudy's struggles are genuine: his family is poor and has never sent anyone to college, his grades are sub-par (largely the result of an undiagnosed learning disorder), he can't afford his junior college let alone Notre Dame and Rudy is, at best,only a moderate athlete. It is in the way that he overcomes these obstacles (not to mention the beautiful performance by Sean Astin) which provides the refreshing realism which is at core of this film. "Rudy" is what sports are really all about.

Rudy is a story that pulls at every heart string and emotions you possibly could have. Why? Well it doesn't have to do with the actors, though they are all great. It doesn't have to do with the filming, it isn't what draws us in. It is one thing. The one major fact.

The True Story. To watch and see how Rudy overcomes every obstacle he faces. To see how Rudy truly triumphs, even if it isn't the best possible success for someone, for Rudy it is everything.

This movie is a story that teaches a lesson. It is about football, but it is about believing. Never giving up. Always giving it your all.

Rudy is a movie that gives us something to believe in. Believe.