'Marshall' moments belong to the coach
The movie's more about the drama rather than the action.
By COLIN COVERT
(MINNEAPOLIS) STAR-TRIBUNE
After a terrific opening hour, this gridiron drama stops being a quality film and becomes a well-executed but conventional slab of pigskin-patterned uplift.
Based on the 1970 plane crash that killed virtually every member of the Marshall University football squad, the film economically gives us a sense of how interesting and important and alive the team and its officials were before abruptly chopping them out of the story with a brutal cut to black.
Rebuilding the school's football program becomes a way to move beyond the trauma, first for the remaining players, then for the college, and ultimately for the grieving community. The job falls to yokel coach Jake Lengyel (Matthew McConaughey in violent plaid sport coats and a haircut that looks like he went to the worst barber in West Virginia and said "Make me look like Joe Namath.")
With cornpone charm and a car salesman's knack for sizing up his adversaries, he rallies his team, beginning with the reluctant university president (David Strathairn), the father of the late star running back and head of the school's board (Ian McShane), and the assistant coach who missed the fatal flight by chance (Matthew Fox.) Then there's the small matter of recruiting a whole new roster, training them and persuading the NCAA to throw away its rulebook and let those freshmen play.
Drama before action
Director McG, the creator of the candy-colored "Charlie's Angels" films, wins this week's Nice Surprise Award for putting old-fashioned personal drama before the femur-snapping action on the field, but not all of it works. Strathairn is entertaining as the prim and proper egghead who doesn't really get football, while the too-subdued Fox relies on the same maudlin, misery-stricken gape he has worn in every episode of "Lost."
Still, McConaughey sparkles as the cranked-up coach who cons everyone into believing they can put the past behind them with a few victories. He's a Pied Piper of optimism, and you can see why the town is ready to fall in line behind him.
"We Are Marshall" won't be remembered as a great sports movie, but it may be noted as the one that flipped McConaughey from underachieving movie idol to terrific character actor.