12 Órfãos Poderosos

I love movies that are based on real events and I read the book that the film is based on.

It's too bad that there wasn't enough time to pack in more from the book. Still, a very moving and enjoyable film. Don't miss it.

Rusty Russell moves his family and takes a job at a home for orphans and learns as much from them of hope, opportunity and family as he ever imagined. Solid family film with plenty of teaching moments.

Triumphant sports stories about underdogs banding together to achieve victory are about as long in the tooth as Jerry Jones. As a trope, they can be an eye-rolling cliché. Done right, with honesty and sincerity, any of that artificial sweetener can be blinked away.

The inspired-by-true-events football movie 12 Mighty Orphans hits every one of those tropes with spectacular two-point conversions but the nobility of the story and the impressive lensing has this one avoiding any fumbles.

Luke Wilson plays coach Russell as the quintessential coach/surrogate father: quiet and thoughtful and totally Ted Lasso positive. The remainder of the cast is ably filled out by Martin Sheen reprising his role of President Bartlet, Wayne Knight as the deliberately-bad baddie, and a host of character actor and familiar faces like Treat Williams, Ron White, and a-blink-and-you'll-miss-him Robert Duvall.

Based on a book by Jim Dent, the story is stirring and serious enough to rise above the usual sports rhetoric.

This is one of those movies that you can tell what you are getting by the poster and the tittle.

Some orphaned young men in the 1930's are waiting to come of age.

They have little prospects, no family and are too old to realistically be adopted.

In a time of high morals and little else the boys have a bleak future.

Until Rusty Russell and his wife turn up and see if they can give them a future through American football.

This has great performances, is well produced and has all the heart warming elements you would expect from a story of this type.

An excellent Sunday afternoon watch - hang around for the real life bio's at the credits.

Those looking for an entertaining movie will find that in "12 Mighty Orphans", but only if you accept the liberties taken with the timeline. The movie portrays Rusty Russell arriving at the Masonic Home in 1938, putting together a football team and leading to an apperance in the state championship that season. In reality Coach Russell arrived at the Masonic Home in 1926. He built the program into a quality outfit that reached the state championship game against Corsicana in 1932. That game ended in a scoreless draw with the state title awarded to Corsicana in the tie breaking system of penetrations inside the opponents 20 yard line. My guess is producers opted to take liberties with the timeline in order to insert President Franklin Delano Roosevelt into the story. In reality Coach Russell and his Mighty Mites made their only state championship apperance before FDR took over the White House. The movie is well worth watching. Stay seated to read the closing credits that complete the story. Then go back and research the rest of the story about the Masonic Home and the extraordinary circumstances of those young men and women who called the place their home.