Back Rowe Reviews
Real Time Movie Reviews from the Back Row of a Theater

We Are Marshall (PG)

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Directed by: McG
Starring: Matthew McConaughey
December 2006

“We Are…Mildly Inspired”


Widely regarded as the worst tragedy in the history of collegiate sports, the Marshall University football squad, after suffering a 17-14 loss to East Carolina on November 14, 1970, boarded a plane that crashed in mid-flight. There were no survivors. The new movie based on that horrific true account, We Are Marshall, focuses on the process and politics involved in rebuilding the school’s football program.

The unenviable task of finding a replacement football coach falls on Marshall’s president, Dr. Don Dedmon (David Strathairn). As fate would have it, the last person on Dedmon’s list, Coach Jack Lengyel (Matthew McConaughey), accepts the position; Jack’s passion for life and football stands in stark contrast to the grief-stricken community of Huntington, WV. There’s a great scene where Jack approaches Red Dawson (Matthew Fox) to be his assistant; Jack learns that fate guided Red’s decision to drive home the night of the crash. Sympathetic but firm, Jack challenges Red to stop wallowing in his pool of self-recrimination and get on with living…Red accepts the job.

Ian McShane (
Deadwood) plays the chairman of the school board, Paul Griffen. Paul, an embittered shell of a man whose son was one of the 75 casualties, opposes the groundswell movement to reinstate the football program and threatens to fire Dedmon if the president doesn’t change his position. If Paul has a soft spot it’s for Annie (Kate Mara), the fiancée of Paul’s deceased son. The scene where Annie returns her engagement ring to Paul is one of the movie’s most moving moments.

As would be expected, the film has its fair share of football sequences, which serve as brief respites from the unrelenting, heavy-hitting drama. Thankfully, the film doesn’t get bogged down in the kind of play by play minutiae we’ve seen in some other football movies—the story here focuses on the team and community, not on some glorious championship game. In fact, the movie ends, unconventionally, right after the second game of the ’71 season. Even though writers Jamie Linden and Cory Helms do a good job of balancing game elements with character interplay, the story is still just as predictable as the Power I formation. Further, the movie’s resolution has too much hang time and is overly sentimental, especially for a testosterone-infused gridiron film.

Other fumbles were committed by the technical teams: poor sound mixing, disjointed editing and shoddy direction by McG. On the flip side, the cast does an excellent job in roles that very easily could’ve become stilted. McConaughey steals the show with his portrayal of enthusiastic, dynamic and charismatic Coach Lengyel—nothing seems to get him down and his eternal optimism (like when he asks rival coach, Bobby Bowden, for pointers on how to run the veer) is downright inspiring.

As long as you’re willing to lower your expectations a bit (this isn’t
Rudy or Remember the Titans), We Are Marshall will fill the bill if you need an inspirational sports flick fix. We Are Marshall serves its purpose with solid performances and a faithful script, but would loose by a late touchdown to other top-ranked football movies.

Rating: 2 1/2