Remember the Titans Review
Today is the 22 years anniversary of Remember the Titans, one of my favorite movies of all time and maybe the greatest sports movie of all time. So I wanted to do a retro review of the movie. Let’s get started!
The Good:
When it comes to this movie, does it follow the familiar sports movie formula? Yes it does. But for me it does all of it with greatness and it does the formula the best. Where you have all of the ups and downs, you have the team not liking each other at the beginning then learning to join together, you have the underdog story, and all of the conflict that you expect in a sports movie. But for me this is the movie that all other sports movies are compared to. For example a couple years back I watched Glory Road with Josh Lucas in English class and it just didn’t compare, it had all of the things that this movie had but wasn’t nearly as memorable or as well constructed. So that is really my big positive for this movie, it does the sports movie formula right.
Another thing here is that the characters are just really fleshed out and well written. Where when it comes to the football team some of them have more screen time then others. Some of them get bigger character arcs but all of them are good characters, and all of them have something about them that stands out. Obviously, Bertier and Julius are the main football players so they are the ones that stick with you the most. But even Louie Lastik, the fat guy that is very much the underdog of the movie, is such a fun character that everybody likes and I think everybody likes him. Sunshine is a great character as the cool hot guy of the team, and the energy he brings to the movie just works for me. And you just like all of these characters, and all of them represent a different world view for the actions taking place.
I also think this movie does a great job of capturing this sense of brotherhood and camaraderie amongst the football team. Where the big one is that brotherly friendship between Bertier and and Julius who were both the team captains of their respective football teams, and are at constant adds with one another because they both have these big personalities and are use to be the alpha males of the teams and as the movie goes along they start to respect each other a lot more and form this friendship that really means something. You buy into the fact that these two people started off as enemies but as the movie went along started to become closer and closer with each other. But it’s not just them everybody in this movie, all of the football players start to feel like one team.
From there I just love the cast for this movie and I think that everybody in this movie is fantastic. Of course when you have somebody like Denzel Washington in the lead he can just command the lead and is great at these types of characters. Where you buy him as this football coach that is a little tough on the players, but he’s still likable and charming. And getting a world class actor like Denzel Washington just brings the movie together. Then you have Will Patton as the secondary lead of the movie as Coach Yoast, the white football coach that is kind of torn between everything that is going on, he’s great in this movie. Then Ryan Hurst as Gerry Bertier the all-star hot shot of the football team is great, he can play this cocky kind of douchebag quarterback really well. You also have Donald Faison in here and he’s just a funny guy and brings some nice touches of humor. And then you have a young Ryan Gosling about five-six years before he became this A-list movie star and this was one of his first movies.
And with this movie there are several memorable and inspirational quotes that really mean something. The big one for me is when you have Julius and Bertier talking and bickering, and Bertier’s ego gets the best of him Julius says “attitude reflects leadership” which is a quote that you hear and it makes you think, and it’s so potent and true that it just works. But even on a funnier and lighter level “sunshine” is something that is always fun to use.
Also this is a movie that has a nice sharp sense of humor running through-out it. Every couple of minutes there is some joke that a character says that always puts a smile on my face. Donald Faison is the character that probably gets the most laughs from me, but every character here gets some joke that works.
Finally, this movie has one of the great soundtracks of all time and so many great songs. And this movie is 22 years old and takes place in 1981 so the music from this movie isn’t modern stuff but it's catchy, great, and memorable songs. And this is the best usage of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” out there, and I love that song. One of my favorite movie scenes of all time is when they sing this song.
The Bad:
As you can tell, I love this movie. I just gave the movie a bunch of positives. So my issues with this movie are pretty small and this movie is predictable. I know that I praised the formula for working really well, it delivers a fantastic version of the formula but the formula is a formula that we’ve seen many many many times before. So you can start to put pieces together, and you know when certain things are going to happen.
Final Thoughts: Remember the Titans is a fantastic movie and a fantastic sports movie. I’ve seen the movie several times over the years and every single time I watch it, I love it and I’m always entertained by it. This is my favorite sports movie of all time, and I have a bit of a hard time imagining any other sports movie topping this one.
The Score: 9.7/10 (A)
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