Year:
2000
Studio: Walt Disney Pictures
Movie:
3/5
DVD:
4/5
Remember the Titans
is movie about the 1971 TC Williams High School football team, in
Alexandria, Virginia. While racial tensions threatened to tear the city
apart, TC Williams was undergoing its own turmoil as black students
from two other high schools were added to the white high school.
Bill Yoast (Will Patton) was the football coach at TC Williams. Herman
Boone (Denzel Washington) is his new black assistant coach. Boone was
head coach at a AA program in South Carolina, but now he is at a AAA
program. Before anything even happens, Boone finds himself as the head
coach of the football team because the school board is trying to
placate the black community.
Although Yoast is now the defensive coach, he sticks around because he
cares about his players, who may get the shaft from a black coach. But
Boone turns out to be a fair coach, fair as in he rides everyone hard.
And he's got a big challenge, to integrate the white and black players
into a cohesive team.
This movie is about a football team that finds its way. It's about
white and black kids who may not hate each other at first, but they
certainly don't like each other. But with Boone's help they forcibly
learn to respect each other and see each other as football players.
Some deep friendships are formed and if they don't love each other as
people, they learn to love each other as teammates.
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It's a good
movie. Inspirational. Lots of football action. Denzel Washington is
great as a tough coach who loves his players. Will Patton plays a great
Yoast, a coach with a totally different style of coaching. It's a human
story and it's a good film, and it surprises me that it's from Disney.
It's a bit too adult for Disney's normal target audience and yet a bit
too young for Touchstone.
The DVD includes an excellent commentary track with producer Jerry
Bruckheimer, director Boaz Yakin, and writer Gregory Allen Howard. Lots
of anecdotes about the background and the filming process. Herman Boone
and Bill Yoast talk in the second commentary track. They tend to
reminisce a bit more and ramble on a bit but it's a good secondary
track. Apparently the movie, though it changes things a bit, doesn't
really make anything up and both coaches like the result.
There is a 20-minute behind the scenes featurette and two 6-minute
short featurettes featuring Denzel Washington and the '71 team. There
are some deleted scenes that were rightfully cut and finally we end
with the theatrical trailer.
What I liked: it's a good story.
What I didn't like: nothing in particular.
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