Jeremy’s Tophunder №22: Remember The Titans
We will be perfect — in every aspect of the game. You drop a pass, you run a mile. You miss a blocking assignment, you run a mile. You fumble the football and I will break my foot off in your John Brown hind parts…and then you will run a mile. Perfection. Let’s get to work.
Sometimes movies come out of nowhere and just hit you in the right spot. Remember the Titans is one of those movies for me. Yes, it’s an almost uncomfortably cliche sports movie, and the filmmakers fudged with the details a bit, so let’s get some of the nit-pick details out of the way before I talk about why I love it so much.
- The school wasn’t created in 1971 by merging an all-black school and an all-white school. It was created in 1965 by merging three schools, each of which was already integrated. Like, obviously, it’s still 1971 in Virginia, so the racial tension in the movie isn’t just made up. But it wasn’t as front-and-center with the football team as the movie makes it out to be.
- So many games being close was a bit overstated. Naturally. It’s a sports movie. Nine of the team’s 13 wins were shutouts, including the state championship game. Their scoring margin on the season was 357–45.
- Gerry Bertier’s automobile accident that left him paralyzed happened after the season, not before the state championship game.
- Here’s the damning one — by just about all accounts I can find, Coach Herman Boone wasn’t the cross between Vince Lombardi and Martin Luther King he was made out to be in the movie. He was a violent disciplinarian, eventually fired in 1979 following allegations of physical and verbal abuse of his players.
All that being said, it’s still a movie that I can go back to over and over again. It hits all the beats you expect in a sports movie, and sells it with great performances from a number of the supporting actors (Ryan Hurst as Gerry Bertier and Wood Harris as Julius Campbell, especially).
Is Denzel Washington good in this movie? Actually, I don’t know. He’s kind of just playing Denzel Washington, the same way that Tom Hanks kind of just plays Tom Hanks a lot. But it actually works here. It’s not like Herman Boone was a known person prior to this movie. It’s one of those instances where the role disappears into the actor. Again, that’s okay, though. It’s a Disney sports movie. If you’re coming into it expecting an Oscar-worthy production, you’re going to be disappointed.
There are a lot of lines in this movie that I just absolutely love. Are they cliche sports movie pablum? Absolutely. But I love it anyway. I eat it up. The monologue I quoted up at the top of this post is my favorite, but there are dozens of others. When Jerry “Rev” Harris gets injured, and Ronnie “Sunshine” Bass needs to check in, Denzel gives an impassioned speech about how he lost both of his parents when he was 15 years old, and his 12 brothers and sisters were suddenly looking up to him. Ronnie checks in and makes a great play. Meanwhile, Doc, one of Boone’s assistant coaches walks over and says, “You had 12 brothers and sisters?” Boone says he only had eight, to which Doc replies, “Yeah, 12 sounds better.” Great stuff.
The relationship between Bertier and Campbell is the backbone of the movie, and every scene they share delivers. There’s the famous “Left Side! Strong Side!” scene that kicks off the montage of the team finally gelling together and resolving (some) of their differences. Again, is it cliche and make it seem like two high school football players solved racism in the span of 45 seconds while generic orchestral music swells up behind them? Yes. Of course it does. But, again, it’s a Disney sports movie. What the hell else did you sign up for?
If there’s one thing that I can make no criticisms of, it’s the music they use in the movie. Now, I’m not talking about the original score from Trevor Rabin (the guitarist from Yes). That music is again, generic orchestral music that you barely notice, because it’s designed that way. If you look up Rabin’s film scores, it’s littered with movies where you go “wait, that movie had an original score?” Here’s a sampling: Con Air, Armageddon, Enemy of The State, Gone in 60 Seconds, Bad Boys II, National Treasure, Coach Carter, Glory Road, Snakes On A Plane, Gridiron Gang, and Race To Witch Mountain. Wow. THAT’S a career. (Worth mentioning — just about every one of those movies, like Remember The Titans, was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer.)
No, I’m talking about the soundtrack that populates most of the movie and serves as an exclamation point for many scenes. It’s got Marvin Gaye, Cat Stevens, The Hollies, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Bob Dylan, The Chambers Brothers, and Charles Wright. For those of you who know my taste in music, it’s practically my own personal playlist. Back when burning mix CDs was a thing, I probably had most of these songs on a CD, completely independent of the fact that they’re all used in this movie. I’m really just a sucker for a kick-ass song punctuating a good scene in a formulaic movie. For all of the effort that I put into artistically analyzing a movie like There Will Be Blood, or some of the movies that will come later on the list, there are times when I’m just a basic bitch who loves predictable feel-good movies.
That’s what Remember The Titans is for me. It’s a burger from Five Guys or a Chipotle Burrito. It’s a Bud Light. I know there is better stuff out there, but it’s cheap, it’s reliable, and there are just some moments when nothing else will satisfy me. It’s never my favorite but I’m never not in the mood. It has feel-good scenes, it has football, it has Denzel marching around and being Denzel, it has a few scenes that even get a little dusty. It’s cliche, and it’s formulaic, and it’s predictable, but it’s my 22nd-favorite movie of all time.
(For a refresher on the project, I introduced it in a Facebook Post on Day 1)
Here’s our progress on the list so far:
6. The Fugitive
17. Ocean’s 11
22. Remember The Titans
24. Apollo 13
31. The Lost World: Jurassic Park
45. Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
47. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
67. Batman Begins
76. Finding Nemo
85. Seabiscuit
93. The Truman Show
