Susan Granger’s review of “We Are Marshall” (Warner Bros.)
As inspirational football movies go, this well-intentioned effort sputters and stalls.
Set in the 1970s, “We Are Marshall” explores how a small town in West Virginia struggled to cope with the fiery, fatal crash of a chartered jet carrying Marshall University’s football team, coaches and fans home from a game in North Carolina.
While Huntington’s citizens are enmeshed in grief, three team members who missed the fatal flight suffer from survivor’s guilt. Determined defensive back Nate Ruffin (Anthony Mackie) begs flustered University President Donald Dedmon (David Strathairn) not to suspend the decimated football program, but his traumatized teammate (Brian Geraghty) refuses to play. And assistant coach Red Dawson (Matthew Fox of “Lost”- his hair badly dyed auburn) is wary of going back on the field. Eventually, Dr. Dedmon recruits an optimistic young Wooster, Ohio coach, Jack Lengyel (Matthew McConaughey), who is determined not only to rebuild the team known as The Thundering Herd but also to heal the community.
Despite the tragic, true-life events, screenwriter Jamie Linden and director McG (“Charlie’s Angels”) maintain a static emotional tone, never delving too deeply into the potentially poignant drama, relying, instead, on maudlin sentimentality, utilizing every idiotic football clichŽ ever devised. In addition, characters are introduced and then, inexplicably, disappear.
Clad in cartoonishly garish garb, Matthew McConaughey struts and shouts, rallying the troops the way he rallies his own rambunctious kids. The most bizarre depiction is the creepy relationship between a widower (Ian McShane of “Deadwood”) and his deceased son’s fiancŽe (Annie Cantrell, the great-granddaughter of NY Giants founder Timothy Mara and Pittsburgh Steelers founder Art Rooney). On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “We Are Marshall” is a disappointing 4. There’s coal in this tattered Christmas stocking.
