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Remember The Titans, 2000, 113 minutes, Rated PG
By Lisa Foeman
Unabashedly riveting, audaciously engaging, unapologetically evocative,
atypically football. Remember the Titans.
I viewed this movie nervously. Not because I had the impudence to bring my 13 week old
daughter - alone - but because I awaited certain disappointment. Hollow plot, bland
character development, mediocre acting. Needless worry. |
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Titans is a football movie that is so much more than just football. The
film depicts the true story of the Alexandria (Virginia) School Board’s forced
integration of the three high schools into one, T.C. Williams High School, in 1971. If
integration weren’t enough, the school board bypassed the popular, successful, Hall
of Fame prospect and white head football coach, Bill Yoast (Will Patton), in favor of
Herman Boone (Denzel Washington), a Black self-described “mean cuss” come-here
from the old school to lead T.C. Williams’ team. This unpopular move infuriates local
parents and instigates a boycott by the white football players that is lifted when Yoast
grudgingly agrees to accept a position as an assistant coach. Predictably, the Titans have
an unbeaten season culminating in a state championship. |
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Short Cuts
Two Titans Remember
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In what could have easily been a movie laden with overt racial epithets,
novice screenwriter Gregory Allen Howard refreshingly portrays the subtler, covert side of
racism. Like the back room attempts by the white establishment to undermine Boone’s
run at an unbeaten season and to restore Yoast as head coach. Howard gently reminds us
that just because it looks like a duck doesn’t necessarily mean it will quack.
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At other times, Howard fakes the viewer into thinking the duck will quack.
Witness the scene where the white cop slowly pulls up to Julius “Big Ju”
Campbell (Wood Harris) in his cruiser. I suspect every black person in the theater thought
Big Ju would be arrested for a “while Black” offense. Noticing that I had
unconsciously stopped rocking my baby, I found myself surprised when the officer
congratulated Big Ju for having a good game. Then, just pulled off. Such poignant moments
contribute to Titan’s effectiveness.
Titans grippingly depicts the challenges of forming a cohesive unit - a team - dedicated
to a common cause: winning. Coach Boone, a strict disciplinarian, breaks down his team to
nothing. Then, he deliberately rebuilds it. Coach Boone forces the white players to sit
with the black players on the bus trip to training camp. Once there, he commands that they
get to know each other as a condition of playing on the team. In short, Coach Boone
compels his team to realize the idiocy of racism and to contextually see it for what it
is: a barrier to unity and winning.
Washington is typically exceptional and persuasive as the intense, vigorous Coach Boone.
Patton credibly plays a white man unaccustomed to rule under the authority of a black man.
But it’s the ensemble of relative unknowns who portray the players that makes the
film shine. Kudos to the casting director for recognizing that unknowns, used in just the
right way, can produce a blockbuster film.
Titans, this fall’s must see movie.
M
October 2000
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