“From the ashes, we rose.”
The true story of a university who has most of their football team (save two players and one staff member) killed in a tragic plane crash. The university nearly scraps the program but the student body rises to defend it and a new coach is brought in.
On November 14, 1970 the Thundering Heard football team from Marshall University of Huntington, West Virginia was returning from a game in North Carolina. Tragically the plane crashes just when they were about to land. Red Dawson (Matthew Fox) was sent from the airport in North Carolina to go on a scouting trip and is the only member of the coaching staff to have survived.
Twenty-five boosters and the crew of the plane also perished in the fiery crash. The only members of the team that survived are Nate Ruffin (Anthony Mackie), who had a broken arm, and Tom Bogdan (Brian Geraghty), who missed the flight. The school board and President Donald Dedman (David Straithairn) are considering just scrapping the program when Nate and the student body make an impassioned plea and the tide of shutting the program down changes.
Now they just need to find a coach. Dedman calls all the alumni that are coaches but no one is interested in trying to fill the late coach Rick Tolley’s (Robert Patrick) shoes. One day Dedman gets a call from Jack Lengyel (Matthew McConaughey) who is interested in the job and Dedman hires him. So now they have a coach and a coaching staff, but what about a team? They try and find new players but they’re prohibited from using freshmen by NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association).
Lengyel convinces Dedman to petition to get the rule changed and after some time they association finally relents. So now Lengyel and the coaching staff have to shape these young men (very young men) of the Young Thundering Herd into a team and start winning games.
It’s a bit of an odd thing since We Are Marshall is filled with sports film clichés, but since the true events happened of the plane crash happened in 1970 who says those clichés didn’t arise from this situation. But maybe things are so cliché since the team gets creamed in their first away game and a more cliché-ridden film might’ve gone for the rousing return of the Herd.
Matthew McConaughey seems to be a little over the top in the role of Lengyel with a crooked redneck smile and ass slapping attitude. I don’t know about the redneck part, but the real Lengyel has the same crooked smile. I didn’t mention him in the opening crawl up there but Ian McShane is great as the father of one of the dead ball players who has to come to grips with losing his son.
Even though I rattled on about clichés I still liked the film and found it inspirational in dealing with coming to grips with the death of friends. As with all of these types of sports movies the boys step up to the plate and pull victory out of the jaws of defeat (or despair in this case). A very inspirational movie no matter how many times I typed “cliché.”
We Are Marshall is presented in anamorphic widescreen (2.35:1) and is enhanced for 16x9 televisions. A fullscreen version is available separately. Special features include the 36-minute “Legendary Coaches” which is introduced by director McG and is about legendary sport coaches including Lengyel.
The 1 minute “Marshall Now” is a commercial about the University that interviews some alumni. Finally, there’s the 2-minute theatrical trailer.
We Are Marshall is an inspirational sports film and although McConaughey goes a bit towards the top the spirit of triumphing over adversity is still there. I’m not a football fan but we can all learn something about not letting our spirits get down and moving on.
We Are Marshall is now available at Amazon . It is available for pre-order at AmazonUK for an Oct. 22nd release. Visit the DVD database for more information.
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