# Remember the Titans (2000)

### reviewed by
Jon Popick

    PLANET SICK-BOY: http://www.sick-boy.com
    "We Put the SIN in Cinema"

Denzel Washington's latest picture is – surprise – another `Denzel against the world' film. In the last five years, the forty-five-year-old actor has been in seven films where he has played either a cop, a military man or the victim of some horrible racial injustice. In each of these films, Denzel's straight-laced character has to fight an uphill battle against a seemingly insurmountable force. It's getting pretty tired. Aren't there any juicy bad guy roles he can play?

Luckily, Denzel's fondness for tackling only likeable roles doesn't hamper his latest picture too badly. In Remember the Titans, which was based on a true story, Mr. Washington plays the head football coach of a recently integrated school in the early seventies. He has to contend with the bigoted crackers in his new town, as well as his racially divided team.

Set in Alexandria, Virginia in summer of 1971, Titans begins be showing the racial tension caused by recent laws forbidding segregation. For the upcoming school year, Alexandria combined three local high schools into one new integrated location – T.C. Williams High. Coach Boone (Washington, The Hurricane), who was a winning football instructor in North Carolina, was reassigned to T.C. William's head coaching position by the local school board (how a local school board can reassign a coach from a different state is beyond me).

Coach Yoast (Will Patton, Gone in 60 Seconds) is the lame duck coach of the T.C. William Titans (how a new school can have an existing coach is also beyond me). He's also a successful instructor of the game and a beloved member of the community, but still loses his job to what must have been one of the earliest cases of affirmative action. It quickly becomes clear that the football program will be a racially divided, with Boone and the black players on one side, and Yoast and the white players on the other.

But Coach Boone isn't just a football coach. He's also an apparent expert in race relations, who marched with Martin Luther King and stood toe to toe with the Klan. After an intensive summer training camp, Boone has his Titan players begin working together as a team after dividing them by offense and defense, instead of by race. After weeks of hating each other, the Titans inexplicably seem to unite over a Marvin Gaye song and a contest where they rank out each other's moms.

When the school year finally starts, T.C. Williams is still bursting with racial tension. Coach Boone finds out that he'll be fired if he loses one game, and the Titans begin their improbable run toward the state championship. Improbable, that is, if you've never seen an inspirational sport film in your life.

Among the problems already listed above, it seemed odd for Titans to never bring up Viet Nam. The film has a really hokey epilogue, but I guess you can't fault it if it's based on a true story. Of the Titan players, Donald Faison (Felicity) stands out as the loud-mouthed running back-turned-defensive back. Also of note is the performance of Hayden Panettiere (The Guiding Light), who plays the precocious nine-year-old daughter of Coach Yoast. Washington and Patton capably handle their roles, but there isn't much to them, other than a few funny one-liners.

Titans was directed by Boaz Yakin (A Price Above Rubies) and is the writing debut of Gregory Allen Howard. The film was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, who generally only makes big, noisy summer pictures that make a ton of money. Titans games scenes are pretty well-done, thanks to the snappy editing of Philippe Rousselot (Random Hearts). Yes' Trevor Rabin (a Bruckheimer staple) provides an annoying, heavy-handed score that lets you know when you're supposed to feel various emotions.

1:53 – PG for mild adult language - mostly racial epithets

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