The Express (2008)

I have been writing about movies that the critics didn't care for more often than not these days (thank goodness I liked Toy Story 3, or I would start to feel contrary), and here is another example. This movie chronicles the football career of Ernie Davis, from his time in grammar school through high school, to recruitment for a college team, and then what happens from there. One thing that the movie anticipates is that the audience will know what happened in Davis' life--the problem with telling a bittersweet story that is true is that the ending is already known, so how do you build up to it. The technique that this movie uses is foreshadowing, and I like it.

The actor who plays the adult Ernie Davis is Rob Brown, who I first saw in 'Finding Forrester'--he does a fine job of conveying the frustrations related to being talented and black in the late 1950's. The coach at Syracuse had impressed him because he coached Jim Brown and Jim Brown didn't hate him, even though he seemed angry at everybody and everything. So he went there hoping for the best--civil rights were rolling through the South. Jackie Robinson was playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers. The world was changing and yet it wasn't, not in the day-to-day taunting. Not on the field, not even amongst his team mates. His coach was mostly fair, and mostly decent. One thing I like about the movie is that it is not a hero worship movie--no one is up on too high a pedestal, everyone has wrinkles and weaknesses. It is a good story, and a good lens through which to view a turbulent time in American civil rights history.