Saturday, December 16, 2006

Movie Review: We Are Marshall

By Alex Bentley

We Are Marshall

Based on true events, "We Are Marshall" tells an inspiring story of how a small town in West Virginia, steeped in the rich tradition of college football, struggled to restore their community after one of the worst disasters in the history of American sports. For decades, players, coaches, fans and families came together in Huntington to cheer on Marshall University's "Thundering Herd." For this team and this community, Marshall football was more than just a sport, it was a way of life. But on a fateful night in 1970, while traveling back to Huntington after a game in North Carolina, 37 members of Marshall's football team, plus coaching staff and team boosters, were killed in a plane crash. As those left behind tried to cope with the loss of their loved ones, they found hope and strength in the leadership of Jack Lengyel, a young coach who was determined to rebuild Marshall's football program and in the process help to heal a community.

Source: Cinema Source

• Showtimes and more on We Are Marshall

First rule of thumb when making a sports film: Make sure your subject is interesting. We Are Marshall has that covered in spades, as it deals with the rebuilding of the Marshall University football program after the devastating loss of nearly the entire team and coaching staff in a 1970 plane crash. Whereas as most sports films chronicle the inspirational tales of underdogs who overcome expectations/the odds on the field/court, We Are Marshall had the opportunity to be about something more than just football, to show the impact of a tragedy on a college community like Huntington, West Virginia and how that community rebounded from it.

I say “had the opportunity,” of course, because all this movie really cares about is football. Oh, sure, it makes the cursory attempt to relate to the people peripheral to the team members who died, most notably a star player’s father who works in the local steel mill, is on the board of trustees at Marshall, has his own booth in the local diner, where he is served by the fiancée of said son. However, he represents pretty much the entire town, which is too big of a burden to put on one character, and also gives short shrift to many other people.

Second rule of thumb: If you’re going to forgo the most obvious angle of your story, make sure your Plan B is a viable option. Director McG (third rule of thumb: If your director’s entire name consists of “Mc” and “G,” keep looking) obviously thought he had your normal “underdog overcomes the odds” story going and shifted most of the focus onto the field. Instead of showing what a monumental feat it was just to get the team back out onto the field, he fast-forwards through the rebuilding in order to get to the action. In fact, one of the most laughable parts of the film comes when the reluctant school president, Donald Dedmon (David Strathairn), is encouraged by the new coach, Jack Lengyel (Matthew McConaughey), to directly petition the NCAA to allow Marshall to play freshman players (which previously hadn’t been allowed at any school). In a moment of cheese heaven (or hell, depending on your perspective), Straithairn is shown in the pouring rain outside of NCAA headquarters in Kansas City, waylaying a person leaving for the day (who could’ve been the janitor for all he knew), pleading his case, and then showing up sopping wet (in West Virginia, mind you) to deliver the news to his coach. I understand the need for poetic license, but straining the levels of believability by bending time and space is not a good way to go around doing it.

Then there’s the action. Sorry to spoil it for anybody, but Marshall didn’t (and couldn’t) field a competitive team for many years after the crash. But McG chooses to gloss over this fact and tries to build dramatic tension through the games anyway. The most glaring example of this comes when the team, in the first home game since the tragedy, races down the field, trying to beat the clock to kick a field goal. . .before halftime. Not to diminish the team’s accomplishment of actually competing in a game so soon after rebuilding, but when a film’s dramatic high point is a field goal at halftime, you know your focus is on the wrong area. McG thankfully doesn’t pretend that success in one game was a panacea for all that ailed the team and the university, but by inserting every sports movie cliché into the playing of that game, he did the next worst thing.

And that’s really a shame, because in better hands, We Are Marshall would’ve had a chance to be something really special. McConaughey, in an attempt at being viewed as a “serious actor,” does a pretty good job as the coach, although the way he constantly speaks by having the right side of his mouth stretched out gets a bit grating. Matthew Fox is his normal morose self (and that’s a compliment) in his role as Red Dawson, the lone surviving coach who Lengyel convinces to come back for one year to help out. But Strathairn is horribly miscast (especially considering his success in Good Night, and Good Luck) and everybody else, save for one or two players, tends to fade into the fabric of the story.

We Are Marshall should’ve been the kind of inspirational story that the holiday movie season is known for. What it is, however, is a shoddy attempt to tell a story that deserved a lot better.

This story was submitted by a member of the Pegasus News community.

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