"Remember the Titans" takes, a strong look at racial equality, using football as the backdrop in Virginia in the early 1970s. Not only does director Boaz Yakin put the points of racial equality on the board, he runs up the score.
Remember the Titans - PG
Starring:
Denzel Washington, Will Patton, Ryan Hurst
Directed by:
Boaz Yakin
Now playing:
Showplace 12 West
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Racial tensions were high at T.C. Williams High School in 1971. Busing had just started, and the school had just hired its first black football coach, Herman Boone (Denzel Washington), over successful white assistant coach Yoast (Will Patton). The white players are outraged at the hiring of Boone, as team and community are split down the middle, blacks on one side, whites on the other. Coach Yoast decides to stay at T.C. Williams to help Boone work with the white kids.
The rest of the movie focuses on the trials and change the team must endure to become true winners on and off the football field.
Led by team captain Gerry Bertier (Ryan Hurst), Julius (Wood Harris) and Ronnie "Sunshine" Bass (Kip Pardue), the team must find a way to work together and win, or Boone will lose his job. Along the way the team settles their racial differences. Racial differences are then settled between Coach Boone and Yoast, Julius and Gerry, Gerry's mother and Julius, Gerry and his girlfriend (Kate Bosworth), the white and black communities, cops and blacks and finally Coach Boone and Yoast's daughters. If the two coaches had dogs, they too would've settled their racial differences.
The team and the community finally come together when the Titans reach the state championship.
Harris, Patton and Donald Faison (Petey Jones) turn in solid performances, and Washington is his type-cast self in "Titans." But the rest of the acting is pretty much lousy, led by former Abercombie and Fitch model Pardue.
The film is pretty easy to follow with the exception of a kiss between Sunshine and Gerry, and the football action scenes are very well done. They lack the overexaggeration movies like "Varsity Blues" and "Any Given Sunday" portray.
Despite the overkill of racial equality, "Titans" has a good message and is an descently entertaining movie.
