Le plus beau des combats

How great was this movie? I fell in love with it from being made to watch it in Health class in 11th grade. I love films about adversity within races, and this movie was a classic. Herman Boone has to bring blacks and whites together for a highschool football team to play with each other. Of course, it's the 70's and racism is still rampant. I love the message that people will mesh anyway despite outside complications. Julius' and Gerry's relationship was really profound and special. It crossed a lot of lines. Denzel was remarkable as Coach Boone. He took no crap, yet was scared to lose his position underneath. There was tension everywhere and it worked for the film. The players were really memorable to me. Blue, Rev, Sunshine, Petey, and Louie Lastik were adorable and hilarious. A great ensemble cast effort. The guy who played Yoast was good as well, because he had to learn to overcome prejudices he had that he never knew he did. Even better, was the fact that it's a true story which makes it all the more sweet. I watch this movie over and over and can practically say every line by heart. Great, great film. The Titans really were greater than the gods of Greek myth, and these guys were greater than any stereotype.

Being a former white athlete and coach I am sick of sports movies where the story involves a team eventually winning a championship so I passed this one by when it first came out. Big mistake!! Like "Hoosiers" this one was an exception and what an exception. Remember the Titans is in my top five movies of the past ten years. Denzel Washington, as the coach, gave another of his consistently outstanding performances.

Like "Hoosiers" this is a true story and it is not just a story about sports but a strong story about race. I probably appreciated it more than most because of my background I connected to the movie. During the 1940s I attended schools which were well integrated and students of different races and cultures existed harmoniously. To a large degree, it was because the high school had a very successful football program in which unlike almost all of the other schools, minority athletes were welcome. In my junior year we went undefeated and won the State Championship and the team is still considered the best high school team of all time. The only time the team came close to defeat was in the State final when we played another well integrated team.

Consequently the community while generally middle and upper class except for its minorities was well integrated. As a result although I knew racism existed, I never encountered it in my community. But then I began to see its ugly head. First, the All-American end on our team, a superb athlete, was denied scholarships both to USC and Stanford because neither school accepted minorities. I had always wanted to go to USC but because of what USC did to my friend I turned down its offer of a scholarship the next year as I did to Stanford which I considered a snob school then as I do today.

But my college was cut short when the Korean War began and I was in the service. I was sent to bases in the South and I spent much of the next thirteen years in the South witnessing how bad it was for the blacks and I was involved in the civil rights movement in the South which got me into a lot of trouble with my military superiors.

During my tours in the South I became head coach of a football team at a Southern base. Filled with ex-collegiate stars and some pros, we regularly played Division I colleges and universities. However, because I had black players on my team I couldn't schedule games with any white southern colleges. Instead we scheduled one black college and several state universities in the mid-west.

Some critics have compared the summer camp at which Washington as Coach Boone brought the blacks and whites together as a team as like a Marine Boot Camp but everyone missed the subtlety of this. I went through Boot Camp at a time when the military was just integrating and we had southern blacks and whites as well as a mix of races from other parts of the country in my platoon as well as all classes. It didn't take very long for us to become as one unit. The first part of boot camp is sure hell and the reason for it is that it reduces everyone to the lowest common denominator of misery and you quickly learn that the only way to escape that misery is to work together. This is just the way Coach Boone made it work.

What I liked about this movie is that it showed how all this played out. Most moviegoers today are not really aware of how bad racism was in 1971 but this movie illustrates it well. Even though the movie has a few corny moments and the actors playing the roles as football players look old for high school, these faults are minimal and do not detract from the power of the film.

"Remember The Titans" is one of the two best films to have a chance to win an oscar for best picture.

Denzel Washington leads a cast that is young, fresh, talented and determined to make this movie a success. "Remember The Titans" is laced with strong performances from Will Patton, Ryan Hurst, Wood Harris, Donald Faison and Greg Alan Williams.

Based on a true story "Remember The Titans" follows the 1971 T.C. Williams High School Titans football team and their struggles with integration. Washington is Herman Boone, who has run up against racism after he has been brought in to coach the Titans. Patton is Bill Yoast, the man Boone replaced as head coach.

Washington and Patton are just two pieces of the puzzle, which makes "Remember The Titans" a real gem. However, the strength and real beauty of "Remember The Titans" does not come from Washington or Patton, but the Titan football players because they are the ones who give the strongest performances in the film.

I must say that the best performance of the whole movie other than Washington and Patton is the young actress who portrayed Bill Yoast's daughter, Hayden Panitierre. In "Remember The Titans" this young actress single handidly made it worth watching this film. Her talent shines through and her presence on screen is as fresh as the daily air; furthermore, every time she is on screen she sparkles. It is so pleasurable to see talent like this being discovered.

I hesitated to see "Remember The Titans" because I didn't want to see another football film, but it is more than just another football film.

"Remember The Titans" is a special film that has special performances and is well worth every dollar you spend to rent this film.

"Remember the Titans" is a movie that by the end of seeing it makes you feel good. And why shouldn't it? You would figure that it'll be a nice little picture since it comes from the Walt Disney Company, and I think it's perfect for the whole family. "Remember the Titans" is a comedy-drama based on the true story of a high school in Virginia that is integrated with white and black students, white and black teachers, and white and black athletic coaches. Oscar winner Denzel Washington gives another one of his fine performances as the new head coach of the high school football team, and Will Patton is equally good as the current head coach who is now demoted to assistant coach under Washington. Together they try to get their players of both races to get along and put on a winning team. In addition to Washington and Patton, there are some other terrific performances by the young actors who portray the football players. I see some future stars here. The movie has plenty of dramatic moments with some delightful comedy thrown in the middle of it. It obviously gets a little predictable towards the end which keeps "Remember the Titans" from being a perfect movie. But so what? This is a sports movie and usually sports movies almost always ends with "the big game". Who's going to win that big game? I won't say who wins the big game in "Remember the Titans", but in the end you'll be rooting for the Titans to win, win, win! And that's all that matters. Bottom line: "Remember the Titans" is an excellent film, very well made and very well acted by everyone involved.

***1/2 (out of four)

This movie is more than just about football, race relations and integration. The lead characters excellently portray the human spirit, showing that everyone can overcome not just on the field but also in life. The ending is predictable, but it draws you in with the intense emotion to win both on and off the field.