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REMEMBER THE TITANS Send This Review to a Friend
A big-hearted film in which all the buttons are pressed, Hollywood style, "Remember the Titans" nonetheless has much to say about segregation, integration and people coming to understand and work with one another as a result of events that throw them together in unexpected ways. The crucible is high school football.
"Remember the Titans" is said to be based on a true story. How closely it adheres to reality is irrelevant to its whirlwind force as entertainment with a message. The setup involves a decision in 1971 to integrate T.C. Williams, a high school in Alexandria, Virginia, including pouring in black football players, in an atmosphere of white racist hostility among students and in the community. The effort is further complicated when black football coach Herman Boone from South Carolina is given the top coaching spot over white coach Bill Yoast, who has been a local sports hero and who now is relegated to a job as assistant. It is a formula for hell to bust loose.
The film follows the tensions and the breakthroughs, as well as the gridiron action as the newly constituted Titans set out in quest of a championship. The cast is terrific--Denzel Washington mercilessly forceful and demanding as the Southern import coaching the team as if he were running boot camp training for the Marines; Will Patton as the displaced coach who learns to work together with Boone; Ryan Hurst, Wood Harris, Doanld Faison , Ethan Suplee, Kip Pardue, Earl C. Poitier and Burgess Jenkins among the standout players getting an education in human relations, and nine-year-old Hayden Panettiere as Yoast's precocious, gung-ho, football savvy daughter.
The script by Gregory Allen Howard, who researched the true story as the basis for his screenplay, uses all the gimmicks available to keep an audience keyed up, and director Boaz Yakin, who generally works in a more modest context ("The Price of Rubies" and "Cold Fire"), wraps this drama in a glossy package, from spirited individual confrontations, to grunting tests of strength and attitude on the playing field, and Trevor Rabin's musical direction provides a pounding score that makes sure we feel we're watching important, democracy-affirming stuff.
Although gaudily packaged to the hilt, "Remember the Titans" works in a mass audience manner and is definitely worth remembering when you are searching for a film that has something to say delivered as rousing entertainment. A Walt Disney Pictures release.
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