Football Movies: Like the Super Bowl but Just the Good Parts of the Game
Posted on February 13, 2022 at 12:33 am
Get ready for the Super Bowl with some of my favorite football movies:
Burt Reynolds, who played college football, stars in The Longest Yard as former pro player who puts together a team in prison. (Ignore the Adam Sandler remake, please.)
North Dallas Forty is a darkly comic look at the game with Nick Nolte as an aging player who clashes with the coach.
Remember the Titans is inspired by the true story of the first integrated team at a Virginia high school, with Denzel Washington as Coach Boone. You will cry, I promise.
(Did you catch Ryan Gosling and Hayden Panitierre?). Here Washington and the real Coach Boone talk about the role.
There’s more Ryan Gosling in this little-seen football movie gem, The Slaughter Rule:
Chicago is my home town, so I have a soft spot for Brian’s Song, one of the cryingist movies of all time, the true story of Gale Sayers and Brian Piccolo, with Billy Dee Williams and James Caan.
Why not have a mule as your kicker? Try Gus and see.
Or you could try The Game Plan, featuring real-life former college football player Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson in a more family-friendly story about a selfish quarterback who discovers he has a ballet-loving daughter:
I’m a big fan of the silly but fun Keanu Reeves movie, The Replacements, with Gene Hackman as the coach, a kind of Dirty Dozen of football. Catch “Iron Man” director Jon Favreau on the team.
You can see Favreau in another crying football movie based on a true story, Rudy.
The Express is the true story of the first Black winner of the Heisman trophy, Ernie Davis.
Draft Day has Kevin Costner as a GM whose most important strategic decisions are about the draft.
References to child abuse and injury, tragic death of parents, family conflicts
Diversity Issues:
Disabled character
Date Released to Theaters:
December 17, 2021
Kurt Warner dreamed big. He tells us that from the time he was a young boy watching Joe Montana on television, he wanted to be an MVP quarterback in a team that won the Super Bowl. Perhaps as much of a long shot, when he was in college he fell in love with Brenda, a divorced mother of two children, one disabled, and decided he was going to make a life and a family with her. Sometimes life is even cornier than the movies, and then they go ahead and make a movie about it anyway.
If there was ever a story to show that the difference between winners and quitters is that winners keep going just one day longer, it is the story of NFL Hall of Famer Kurt Warner, who was not even drafted into the NFL after college. Even after the only job he could get was stocking the shelves of a big box store, he did not give up on his dream. He did become a Super Bowl MVP quarterback, and he did make a life with Brenda. And now he and Brenda have produced this movie about what happens when you don’t give up.
Okay, so it is corny, but sometimes corny is fine. So, yes, there will be a rousing locker-room pep talk (though perhaps not from the person you might guess), and yes, people will say things like, “If this is your dream, you have to fight for it,” and “By all accounts, my dream, my story, is impossible,” and “It doesn’t mean anything if you don’t have someone to share it with.” Of course they will, because those things are true. It helps a lot when the talents in front of the camera are MVPs, too, “Shazam’s” Zachary Levi as Kurt and Oscar-winner Anna Paquin as Brenda, with a fourth quarter appearance by Dennis Quaid as Dick Vermeil, who had his own roundabout career path and thus was especially understanding. Levi is an immediately likable presence and he makes Kurt’s dream aspirational, not arrogant or selfish. Paquin brings strength and vulnerability to Brenda, showing us her fear of opening up her heart after a painful divorce and the essential support she gets from her faith in God. They keep us rooting for Kurt because it is clear his dream is based on giving the best of what he has. With any luck, this movie will do for some in the audience what Joe Montana did for Kurt, and inspire another generation to dream big and refuse to quit.
Parents should know that this movie includes some mild language, references to child abuse, and tragic deaths of parents.
Family discussion: What makes sports stories so inspiring? Why did Kurt join the Arena league and what did he learn there? What did Brenda learn from Kurt’s response to Zach? What is your most impossible dream?
Rated PG-13 for some suggestive references, brief teen drinking, smoking, language, and violence
Profanity:
Some strong and crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs:
Reference to alcoholic parent, alcoholic character, teen drinking
Violence/ Scariness:
WWI battle flashbacks and reference to sad deaths, brutal corporal punishment, beatings, injuries, some graphic images
Diversity Issues:
Class issues
Date Released to Theaters:
June 18, 2021
In the Texas dust bowl of the Depression era, the most under- of underdog football teams captured the hearts of people across the state, across the country, and even one fan in the White House. For them, the team of teenagers from a Fort Worth orphanage was a symbol of hope and courage. Oh, and along the way, they came up with an innovation that transformed the game of football.
Director/co-screenwriter Ty Roberts follows his previous two Texas-based films, “This Side of the Dirt” and “The Iron Orchard” with “12 Mighty Orphans,” based on a fact-based novel by Jim Dent.
Teachers Rusty Russell (a subdued but solid Luke Wilson) and his wife Juanita (Vinessa Shaw) arrive at the Masonic Home and School for orphans. They are committed and admittedly optimistic about giving the residents hope, opportunity, and a sense of belonging. That includes setting up a football team, even though the boys are smaller than the other players in the league, have no practice field or equipment, and literally have never held a football before. As we learn in brief flashbacks over the course of the film, Rusty is suffering from PTSD due to his experiences in WWI, including the death of the brother he promised to protect.
At he Masonic Home, there is a kind-hearted doctor with an alcohol dependency (Martin Sheen) and a brutal, angry man named Frank (Wayne Knight), who sees the boys only as free labor for his print shop. Frank beats the boys for the slightest infraction and considers every moment away from the shop for school or football, as stealing from him. He, by the way, is stealing from them, skimming money from the shop.
Rusty and Doc start working with the boys. And the boys start winning games. When the other teams find they cannot beat them on the field, some of them start trying to beat them in other ways. Rusty has to make up for the smaller size of his players with a new strategy called the spread defense that would change the game of football at the most fundamental level.
Cinematographer David McFarland uses muted tones to evoke the era, a nod to the sepia images we associate with the era but also providing a context of dust, depression, and deprivation. Even though there are moments of intense emotion and struggle, Roberts maintains a quiet, deliberate tone that adds dignity to the storytelling, though it slows sections of the film, particularly when characters and incidents and issues start to pile up in a distracting manner. Sheen gives some wry sweetness to a thinly conceived role that balances Wilson’s subtle decency. The real triumph of the story is not in the goals scored but in the way that dedication, attention, and a good example can transform not just those who are inspired directly, but those who see in them possibilities not previously imagined.
Parents should know that this film includes some strong language, crude sexual references, alcohol abuse, scenes of combat, and injuries with some graphic images.
Family discussion: Why did Rusty think football was so important for the boys? How do we treat parentless children differently now?
If you like this, try: “Remember the Titans” and the book that inspired this film.
Get ready for the Super Bowl with some of my favorite football movies:
Burt Reynolds, who played college football, stars in The Longest Yard as former pro player who puts together a team in prison. (Ignore the Adam Sandler remake, please.)
North Dallas Forty is a darkly comic look at the game with Nick Nolte as an aging player who clashes with the coach.
Remember the Titans is inspired by the true story of the first integrated team at a Virginia high school, with Denzel Washington as Coach Boone. You will cry, I promise.
(Did you catch Ryan Gosling and Hayden Panitierre?). Here Washington and the real Coach Boone talk about the role.
There’s more Ryan Gosling in this little-seen football movie gem, The Slaughter Rule:
Chicago is my home town, so I have a soft spot for Brian’s Song, one of the cryingist movies of all time, the true story of Gale Sayers and Brian Piccolo, with Billy Dee Williams and James Caan.
Or you could try The Game Plan, featuring real-life former college football player Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson in a more family-friendly story about a selfish quarterback who discovers he has a ballet-loving daughter:
I’m a big fan of the silly but fun Keanu Reeves movie, The Replacements, with Gene Hackman as the coach, a kind of Dirty Dozen of football. Catch “Iron Man” director Jon Favreau on the team.
You can see Favreau in another crying football movie based on a true story, Rudy.
The Express is the true story of the first Black winner of the Heisman trophy, Ernie Davis.
Neal McDonough (“Arrow”) stars in “Greater,” the true story of Brandon Burlsworth, the greatest walk-on in the history of college football. He plays Burlsworth’s brother Marty, who inspired and supported Brandon’s dream of playing for the Arkansas Razorbacks, and who made it through sheer determination and persistence. McDonough, who has played supervillain Damien Darhk in “Arrow” and “Legends of Tomorrow” and superhero good guy Dum Dum Dugan in “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D,” answered my question about playing a real-life character and why we love movies about sports.
How did growing up in a big Irish family help prepare you for working on movies and television?
I joke sometimes that it was great training for working in ensembles, because you’re so accustomed to having to do something to make yourself stand out when you grow up one of six kids. I suppose the real help it’s been is that it teaches you to be comfortable in crowds and chaos – and movie and TV sets are certainly that.
Your character in “Greater” was more than an older brother to Brandon Burlsworth. Why was that relationship so vital and how is it portrayed in the film?
Marty is so much older than Brandon that he is often mistaken for his dad – which is a running joke in the film and was a running joke in the lives of the real Marty and Brandon. And since their father is troubled and absent for both of most of their lives, Marty is very much a surrogate dad to Brandon. So he has almost two concurrent relationships running with Brandon – the jovial, joking brother side and the more caring and protective parental side. It makes for a very rich and complex character to play.
You’ve been working on some heightened, genre projects based on comic books. How do you recalibrate for returning to a more realistic, fact-based drama?
It’s why they pay us to act, right? Actually, for me, a role like Damien Darhk in “Arrow,” who is such a true comic-book, over-the-top villain, is far easier to play than Marty. There’s less deep characterization in a villain like Darhk – lots of broad brush strokes of villainy – how truly bad can you be, you know? But it’s a lot more rewarding, and more of an exercise in the craft of acting, to take on a character with as many emotions and layers as Marty.
What are some of your favorite football movies? Why are we so drawn to sports stories?
Favorite football movies? Well, “Greater,” of course. (laughs). Sports movies, when done right, spotlight the best about the human spirit and character: doing your best, overcoming the odds, matching your skills with another person’s, developing camaraderie and teamwork and achieving a goal – whether as a team or an individual. Sports are where we test our limits, face our fears, make our dreams come true. That’s what audiences will see in “Greater” – excitement and emotion.
What was the first acting job you got paid for?
I played the pivotal role of “Dockworker No. 2” in Darkman, which I hadn’t thought about until right now, is interesting because it was a superhero movie and, well, had a character with “dark” in his name at the center. Interesting, isn’t it, how you notice all these “coincidences” when you look back over your life and your career – when you’ve tried to follow the path God has laid out for you. Fascinating, and humbling.
What’s the best advice you ever got about acting?
Steven Spielberg told me, “Every good actor is no further than 50 feet from the camera, even in-between rehearsals, between takes.” That’s great advice because If you’re in the orbit of the camera, no further than 50 feet away, if they need you, boom, you’re right there. They don’t have to call to get you out of your trailer. If you’re always right there; that’s a great actor. You learn so much because you see how they do certain lighting; you see how other actors act. For young actors, the more you can stand around or sit there—-even when you’re not shooting-—just sit there on the set and shut up for three hours, you’ll learn more in one day than you’ll ever learn in film school.
What do you want people to learn from the story of Marty and Brandon?
First and foremost, I hope they’re truly entertained. This is a movie of very big ideas and themes but also great fun and humor. There is some excellent, exciting football action in this movie, along with lots of solid family drama. And there’s plenty of humor, too, in Marty’s relationship with Brandon but also as we see Brandon expanding his social skills as he gets more and more accomplished at football.
But I also hope audiences leave encouraged – reminded that when hard times do come, and they will, that God has a purpose in them. And we can actually be blessed through the pain if we follow Him through it.