Sincere strategy

By STEVE PERSALL

© St. Petersburg Times, published September 28, 2000

Quiet moments off the field and well-choreographed football scenes team to make Remember the Titans memorable.

Remember the Titans is a football movie that could be penalized 15 yards for piling on. It's relentlessly sentimental about its noble, cookie-cutter jocks, from opening shots of autumn leaves blowing through a cemetery to a "where-are-they-now" postscript after the obligatory big game.

Predictable as Mike Shula's old Bucs playbook. Hokey as a Virginia Tech pep rally.

But, a viewer would have to be more cynical than Dennis Miller to resist pulling for Remember the Titans to succeed. There is simply too much goodness here, in intentions and performances, to smirk, even when Boaz Yakin's movie artistically deserves it.

The film is based on a true story, reportedly sticking close to the facts. In 1971, segregated Alexandria, Va., students merged into integrated, racially inflamed T.C. Williams High School. Herman Boone, an African-American, was named head coach over a more popular (i.e. white) candidate. Boone won the respect of his players and community, and a state championship.

Denzel Washington plays Boone, and there isn't a more convincing actor under any circumstances, even schmaltz. He looks like a coach and behaves like one for whom I'd like to play. Everything in the script has as much purpose for Washington as football does for Boone. This isn't a stretch for an Oscar-winning actor who wears quietly mocking dignity so well.

Yet, this is one of the few times that Washington has actually been upstaged in a movie. Or, rather, by a movie and its desire to inspire.

Remember the Titans is a total team effort, with everyone working in service of the ultimate goal of amiable moralizing. No showboating allowed. Washington doesn't make Boone a savior, or even the focus of the story. That honor goes to brotherhood, and if that sounds corny, go rent Varsity Blues again.

Boone's first coaching assignment is getting his players to know and like each other, a tall order considering the color boundaries drawn. They bristle at Boone's maneuvers, and Gregory Allen Howard's screenplay does a nice job of giving each player a personality hook to keep their identities clear.

A few players become standouts. Ryan Hurst is an actor with a promising future, considering his tough shell as Bertier, a white All-American linebacker, and the tenderness emerging as his prejudices disappear. Wood Harris isn't as polished in his acting style, but his leadership role among the black players makes the relationship with Bertier a key part of the story.

Comic relief is found in the obese shape of Ethan Suplee's role as a pasty-faced transfer student with enough Motown soul to bridge the race gap. Donald Faison gets the player-in-transition role, playing Petey, an injured quarterback learning his limitations under Boone's control. The wild card is Dale Pardue's charismatic turn as Sunshine, a hippie dude with a rocket arm who replaces Petey when the chips are down.

These roles are briskly defined, and the actors make them immediately appealing. Washington plays it straight while enjoying the young talent percolating around him.

Another vital subplot involves Boone's growing relationship with Coach Yoast (Will Patton), the man passed over for the head position. Patton has long been a favorite unsung actor, playing creeps and killers in films such as The Spitfire Grill and The Postman. This time, he has a good-guy role making fine use of his Southern twang and understated manner. Yoast's relationship with his 9-year-old, football-crazed daughter (Hayden Panettiere) is one of the film's pleasant surprises.

The football scenes are well-choreographed, but the film depends more on those quiet moments off the field, when friendships are forged, then dismissed by outsiders, giving everyone another reason to rally together. Remember the Titans is a feel-good movie in every sense of that description, making it easier to overlook the cliches and Yakin's occasional rush to make everything turn out nice.

This is a Disney movie, after all. The morals of the story are painted in big block letters and proudly worn by actors like names on the backs of their jerseys. There is something so sincere about that strategy that predictability is easily overlooked.

It should be noted that the film is produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, a filmmaker who has taken heat over the years for his shallow, big-budget cinema (Armageddon, Con Air, The Rock). This feels like some kind of penance, a small movie with a big heart that doesn't need Bruckheimer's bombastic trappings. Nice call, coach. Good movie.

Remember the Titans

• Grade: B+
• Director: Boaz Yakin
• Cast: Denzel Washington, Will Patton, Ryan Hurst, Donald Faison, Kip Pardue, Ethan Suplee
• Screenplay: Gregory Allen Howard
• Rating: PG; violence, mild profanity
• Running time: 113 min.

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