Remember the Titans

Denzel Washington in Remember the Titans.

A rousing, cheer out loud, feel good movie that never becomes self-indulgent or heavy-handed. Denzel Washington stars as Coach Boone hired as the T. C. Williams High football coach in Alexandria, Virginia in 1971 at a time when the school has just been racially integrated. This movie really makes you care about the people in it and for sheer entertainment and audience enthusiasm is probably the best movie I have seen this year (with the possible exceptions of X-Men and Chicken Run).

Denzel is his typically brilliant self as the stubborn yet understanding coach who, through his players, is able to affect change throughout the community. This movie, however, is really a team effort and though he is the marquee name the story focuses as much, if not more, on the players themselves. At the beginning of football camp the entire team is racially separated. Coach Boone tells them that they must get to know every player on the team of a different race, he also makes them eat and bunk with a member of another race. We get to know the teammates as they struggle with and overcome their own biases and fears.

Once back in the real world, however, some of the old habits return and some rifts between players are reopened. Will the Titans pull together in time to become a winning team? And more importantly can camaraderie on the athletic field lead to increased racial harmony in the larger community? Judging by the very positive reaction of the very diverse audience watching this movie with me, I would have to say that the uplifting true story of Coach Boones' Titans is still doing just that.

Donald Faison and Ryan Gosling in Remember the Titans.

Patrick,  Remember the Titans is clearly  trying to be a, "...rousing, cheer out loud, feel good movie..." but I disagree with you completely when you wrote that it, "...never becomes self-indulgent or heavy-handed."  This is an extremely  "heavy" handed message film about whites and blacks learning to get along.  It makes a point about the need for racial harmony within the first five minutes and continues all the way through to the final groan inducing line, "People say that it can't work, black and white. Here, we make it work every day. We still have our disagreements, of course, but before we reach for hate, always, always, we remember the Titans."

Although Coach Boone is strict on all the players , it is mostly the white players who have the most changing to do.  During an argument between the white team captain and a black player, the black player yells, "Then why don't you tell your white buddies to block for Rev better? Because they have not blocked for him worth a blood nickel, and you know it!"  In the dorm the white player starts an argument with the black player.  

It is very one sided.  When Ryan Gosling plays and sings his country music his black room mate gives him disgusted looks and says, "Does the term "cruel and unusual punishment" mean anything to you?"  Gosling is later shown liking his black room mates music but never the other way around.

Remember the Titans goes so over board with melodrama that Coach Boone even gives a lengthy, melodramatic speech comparing his white and black players to civil war soldiers in battle.  I grew weary of being reminded of race.  Coach Boone states in a different speech,  "Tonight we've got Hayfield. Like all the other schools in this conference, they're all white. They don't have to worry about race. We do."  To another coach he says, "The world don't give a damn about how sensitive these kids are, especially the young black kids. You ain't doin' these kids a favor by patronizing them. You crippling them; You crippling them for life."  

Of course the players all come together with the white kids becoming nicer and a black player dropping his attitude.  The black and white player who fought become best friends.  That is all sweet but the journey to acceptance seems far to fabricated.  Evil rich white guys try to bribe the white coach and pay off the refs to cheat against the Titans.  Coach Boone's neighbors come out side and lean out windows to cheer for him when he arrives home after a big win. 

The pontificating became tedious.  The white coach tells the team,  "I hope you boys have learned as much from me this year as I've learned from you. You've taught this city how to trust the soul of a man rather than the look of him."

This film could have been so much better if it just let the story play out naturally and allowed the audience to witness the unification going on without having to be reminded of it every five minutes.  When a white player's dad brings his son to meet coach Boone instead of another team, he says of the other coach, "He won't let blacks play on his team. The way I see it, if these boys can fight a war together, they can play football together."  Patrick may not mind Remember the Titans spoon feeding it's message, but I did.  It is so over done that it nearly gagged me with it's shovel sized dose of tolerance. 

Considering the ratio of black coaches to black players in sports, the story of coach Boone is a unique and fascinating one.  As of this writing about fifty percent of college football players are black, yet only three percent of head coaches are black. Remember the Titans should have focused more on him and let the uniting of the team play out in the back ground as a result of his efforts and determination.