The Junction Boys

Tom Berenger does a nice, understated turn as a young Bear Bryant trimming the deadwood from his first Texas A&M squad. Bear's method - take the team to Junction, Texas, work the team to death and see who's left. I suspect the story's been somewhat "Hollywoodized". Just the same, it presents a fair picture of the positives and negatives of driving a team to the edge. Worth a view.

Just saw The Junction Boys, a must see movie if you ever get the chance. Tom Beringer portrays Bear Bryant perfectly, and everyone of the supporting actors were wonderfully cast. ESPN entertainment is getting better with every project they produce.

If you're a fan of Tom Berenger you might like this film somewhat. He's one of my favorites but still I didn't find much enjoyment out of this true tale of legendary Football coach "Bear" Bryant.

Berenger's performance was very good, I thought, having read that the actual "Bear" was a really tough S.O.B. in real life. Everything else here is mostly mediocre. The film depicts well the hell these boys went through under his leadership but somehow none of this affects the viewer in any way. It could easily have been longer and fleshed out more characters, this is pretty shallow stuff.

As said above, Berenger does a good job at displaying the character's motivations for his cruel and unusual training method. Like in Rough Riders where Berenger basically became Teddy Roosevelt, here he seems to quite simply BE Paul "Bear" Bryant. Really good actor.

The Junction Boys was a disappointment for me. As with any movie a certain amount of liberties with the facts is expected. However, After seeing interviews with the REAL Junction Boys it is clear that the facts played a very small part in this motion picture. If the real story about The Bears first team at Texas A&M were told this would have been a great movie. Tom Berenger did a good job as Paul Bear Bryant, but it all ended there. ESPN should be ashamed of this production.

My main complaint is the use of made up names, in the manner of North Dallas Forty. I can not imagine the real "Junction Boys" having any trouble with their real names having been used. I also have a minor complaint about the players hugging each other. They did not do that, not in 1954. They just didn't. Otherwise, it is an outstanding diversion. As near as I can tell, not a whole lot of

other liberties have been taken with the truth. It is worth watching...