We Are Marshall Review

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LauraBelle
South Elgin, IL

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We Are Football

in a football family, Movie Reviewer, a storyteller, A Big Giant Sap

Pros

Heart, Inspirational, Matthew McConaughey

Cons

None

SEP

2007

We are a football family. We live and breathe it every weekend from August until January. My husband coaches and runs a youth league that's associated with his high school alma mater, my daughter cheerleads for the same league, and my son plays football for his high school freshman team and plays percussion in the high school band which plays at the varsity home games. There are literally some weekends where we have four games on the weekend, Thursday through Sunday. Yet, oddly, we aren't footballed out. I had seen the movie, We Are Marshall, with my kids in the theatre on one of their days off school and we all loved it. I knew I had to share it with my husband, so I bought the DVD.

One of the reasons I knew my husband had to see it is the football coach in the movie, Jack Lengyel (Matthew McConaughey), reminds me so much of him. Not with the eccentricities that Lengyel seems to have, or the crazy plaid pants he seems to favor, but his heart and beliefs in football. I saw the same dedication in that character that I see around my house. I knew his wife was as much of a "football widow" as myself.

My husband even remembered the true story in which the film is based on, even though he was only 7 years old at the time. In 1970, a plane carrying the entire varsity football team for Marshall University, as well as the coaching staff, booster club, and athletic director, crashes on the way back from a losing game. Everyone on the flight perishes, and left behind to pick up the pieces are the university president (David Strathairn), parents, a fiance, varsity players who hadn't made the trip because they were on the injured list, and an assistant coach (Matthew Fox) who made a last minute decision with another coach to drive home, allowing the other coach to take the flight home to make it to his granddaughter's piano recital on time. He never made it.

One of the bigwigs on the university board (Ian McShane) happens to be the father of one of the players. He does not want the football program to be resurrected, although he can't admit at the time it's mostly for selfish reasons. One of the four surviving members of the team that had been injured (Anthony Mackie) convinces the university president that it's unfair to those players left behind to not continue. The president strikes out finding anyone willing to take on this team, a long-shot for survival, until he fields a call from Lengyel, currently the coach at the College of Wooster.

The university president is confused as to why Lengyel would even want to take this on, considering he has something good with Wooster. His reason is because he thinks he can help. When he heard about the plane tragedy, he thought about his family, and how much it would hurt to to lose them. When he looks further now, he figures there is probably a whole community that is hurting, and he's right. It's definitely an uphill battle, but he wants to help. He's not really looking for the glory; he just wants to help.

Lengyel has unconventional methods for doing mostly everything. To remember the players' names he employs memory methods he read about in Rebook. To convince the surviving member of the coaching staff to return, he visits him and climbs on the shed he's building, discussing what size of boards he's using, and talks about the train that derailed but still came back again the next day. Looking for an offense for what will be a very young team, he approaches Marshall's arch rivals and virtually asks to steal theirs.

Truth be told, this movie isn't really about football so much as it's about having heart and carrying on through tragedies, much as many football movies are, such as Brian's Son and Remember the Titans. You don't have to know your Xs and Os to appreciate the film. You just have to have heart and be able to appreciate others that have so much, they're willing to take on the unthinkable.