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'Express' scores by sticking to same old (good) story

Rob Thomas  —  10/10/2008 5:51 am

"The Express" doesn't reinvent the wheel when it comes to inspirational "based-on-a-true-story" sports movies, but that was a wheel that didn't need to be reinvented. In fact, it's to its credit that the film doesn't try to self-consciously break the mold set by "Remember the Titans," "Hoosiers" and a zillion others, but focuses on telling its own story predictably but earnestly.

"The Elmira Express" was the nickname given to running back phenom Ernie Davis, who led Syracuse to a national championship and became the first African American to win the Heisman Trophy. This was around 1960, when parts of the country weren't very hospitable to the idea of African-American players using the same drinking fountains as them, let alone being held up as a shining ideal for the nation.

Rob Brown, who has walked this route before in films like "Finding Forrester" and "Coach Carter," plays Davis as a near-saintly figure who, for the most part, bears racial slights with equanimity. His unbelievable speed and quickness on the field gets him a scholarship to play for the Orangemen, where not only is he one of only three African Americans on the team, but he's filling the shoes of the legendary Jim Brown. In his brief appearances, Darrit Dewitt Henson gives Jim Brown more complexity than Rob Brown gives to Davis, showing how Jim Brown visibly chafed on the largely white Syracuse campus.

Syracuse's coach, Ben Schwartzwalder (Dennis Quaid) butted heads with Brown for four years, and it's a sign of the times that he's unwilling to sign another African-American running back as a result. But Davis' skill is undeniable, and, as a fellow player tells Davis, his coach "must like winning a little more than he dislikes black people."

"The Express" follows Davis' career at Syracuse, going from a perennial loser in Davis' freshman year to the national championship. But the real drama lies elsewhere, primarily in the tense relationship between an African-American player and his white coach, but also how the country was changing around them. Schwartzfalder doesn't really come off as a racist, but more as a hard-nosed coach who always played by the rules, both written and unwritten. And one of those unwritten rules in 1959 America was that you don't let your African-American players score when they're playing an away game in West Virginia.

That's the kind of unjust, unspoken rule that people like Davis were pushing against, and "The Express" is really worth seeing for Quaid's performance. He's a really underrated actor, and the way he shows Schwartzfalder gradually seeing the light (and having the good sense to be embarrassed by his past views) is really quite moving.

The football action in the film is exciting but a little hard to follow, focusing on well-shot moments of bodies slamming together rather than giving you any sense of the overall game. And director Gary Fleder uses the annoying technique of suddenly cutting into grainy black-and-white footage, as if what we're watching is old historical footage and not a film.

A movie is supposed to be an immersive experience, and those self-conscious visual attempts to fake "authenticity" kept pulling me out of the storyline. I already get ESPN Classic at home, and I don't need it recreated for me at the theater, thanks.

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THE EXPRESS

Two-and-a-half stars

Stars: Rob Brown, Dennis Quaid

Rated: PG for language, on-the-field violence

Where: Point, Eastgate, Star Cinema

For fans of: "Remember the Titans," "Glory Road," locker room speeches

Rob Thomas  —  10/10/2008 5:51 am