Woodlawn (2015)
Rated PG
Starring Nic Bishop, Sean Astin, Caleb Castille, Sherri Shepherd, Jon Voight,
Directed by Andrew Erwin and Jon Erwin
The Story:
Coach Tandy Gerelds (Bishop) takes over the Woodlawn High School team in Birmingham Alabama at the height of desegregation in the 70s. Trying to integrate his racially mixed football team proves to be challenging, but Hank (Astin) comes to ask if he can give the team a pep talk. Hank preaches about the love of Jesus and how they should all work together towards a common goal, and the message of love makes the team bond together and they go on a remarkable run through the season that inspires the entire community.
This is their story.
Faith.
Football.
Mix these two together and it should be a slam dunk (wrong sport, I know) yet there was something slightly off with this film. I can't pinpoint exactly what it was that just didn't register with me on this film.
Perhaps it was the length of the movie (a bit over 2 hours) or the repetitiveness that seemed to happen during the season. Sure, I get it, it's football after all, but it really seemed to just keep pushing the same three buttons over and over again and never really expanding any of the character focus.
Granted, these based on a true story films, you can only take so much creative license with, but it just seemed like there should have been more conflict based on the desegration or the faith inspiration than was really portrayed.
The cast was fine, with a lot of focus put on Castille who portrayed Tony Nathan in the film. The nice part, that while Woodlawn doesn't go on to have the happy ending you normally get in the movies, they do tackle a bit of Nathan's story to end on an upbeat note when he does finally win a championship and one of the first people that he calls is his old coach.
It's a good movie, just not a great one.
Final Grade: C
No comments:
Post a Comment