冲锋陷阵 Remember the Titans review by Andrew O'Hehir

An operatic tale of high school football, racial integration and young men's passions, "Remember the Titans" is a Hollywood movie Sen. Joseph Lieberman could love (and probably will). Taken on its own terms, it's an agreeable entertainment, solidly crafted, wonderfully acted and often genuinely moving. Its timing couldn't be better; it carries a PG rating made to order for the film industry's new era of self-discipline, so there's nary a cuss word or a naked babe in sight. That doesn't mean the movie is free of or violence, mind you, only that they're under the furniture where you can't quite see them. Beneath its veneer of wholesomeness, "Remember the Titans" is a weird film about a weird sport and a weird country.

On the surface, this is the same inspirational saga seen in dozens of sports movies, with a mild dose of racial tension from "In the Heat of the Night" or "Mississippi Burning" mixed in. Gregory Allen Howard's screenplay is largely based on real people and real events: It's 1971, and the population of Alexandria, Va., is deeply divided over the newly integrated high school. In an abrupt spasm of affirmative action, the football team is taken away from longtime coach Bill Yoast (Will Patton) and handed over to Herman Boone (Denzel Washington), a black coach from out of state who has just been hired as an assistant.

Yoast eventually persuades himself to stay on as an assistant -- partly to protect the white players -- and the inevitable subplots develop. The team's charismatic white and black stars, Gerry Bertier (Ryan Hurst) and Julius Campbell (Wood Harris), forge a passionate friendship out of their initial mutual contempt. (In most movies this would be the romantic subplot with a tragic ending, and it pretty much is in this case too.) A pretty-boy California quarterback (Kip Pardue) and a humongous white-trash lineman (Ethan Suplee) show up to provide comic relief. A sensitive black player (Donald Faison of "Clueless") is hounded by Boone but nurtured by Yoast at a key moment in the team's evolution. Even the two coaches' irritatingly cute daughters become friends.

Of course we know exactly where this story is going, just as Athenian audiences understood why Oedipus dug his new wife so much long before the play started. Whether or not it's true that the remarkable season the T.C. Williams Titans had under Coach Boone in 1971 saved Alexandria from white flight and racial violence really isn't relevant. Believing that such things are possible, however, is a key article of our national faith. For most viewers of "Remember the Titans," the issue will not be how the movie is going to end but how Howard and director Boaz Yakin will get us there. For the most part, it's a colorful, eventful ride, just bumpy enough so it seems like a real journey, told with vigorous humor and style.

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