Click Here For Our Interview with Matthew McConaughey
Click Here For Our Interview with Matthew Fox
Click Here For Our Interview with Anthony Mackie
Click Here For Our Interview with Ian McShane

We Are Marshall

Review By: Stephen Snart
StephenSnart@TheCinemaSource.com

Three months after the one-two punch of inspirational football dramas (Invincible and Gridiron Gang) at the end of the summer, We Are Marshall asks moviegoers to return once more to the land of the pigskin for an end of the year lesson on motivation and resilience via football. Like its based-on-a-true-story brethren, this latest cinematic foray into America’s second favorite pastime knows the football formula by memory and delivers just about everything you can ask for from the sturdy subgenre and nothing more. We Are Marshall makes a bid for higher quality by basing its story on one of the most tragic moments in college sports history but fumbles the ball early on before recovering and delivering a well-intentioned but unremarkable touchdown.

On Saturday, November 14th 1970, the Marshall University team plane suffered a weather related malfunction and crashed somewhere around the Appalachian Mountains. Everyone on board was killed in the accident, leaving behind three varsity players and one assistant coach, Red Dawson (Matthew Fox). Dawson, who was scheduled to be on the flight but a last minute recruiting assignment found him traveling by car instead, feels too guilt stricken to stay with the school and retreats to a life of shed building with his wife, Carol (January Jones).

These characters live in one of those small football towns where everyone listens to the game on the radio in the local diner while waiters critique the defense formations. With the University’s beloved football program in jeopardy, the only remaining star player, Nate Ruffin (Anthony Mackie) takes it upon himself to restart the football program and rallies the townsfolk to support him. Using all the stilted, claptrap speech he can muster, Nate appears before the school board and petitions to rebuild the program for the next season instead of letting it languish as university president Donald Dedmon (David Strathairn) is prepared to do. When the board isn’t initially convinced, he opens the windows and reveals a swarm of students standing outside, chanting the indelible sports cry, “We are Marshall!” It’s one of the few instances in which mob mentality is portrayed in such a positive light.

Reinstating the football program is easier said than done when the only coach willing to accept the job is the loopy Jack Lengyel (Matthew McConaughey). But the unorthodox methods of the young Ohio native are exactly the kind of gung-ho sanguinity the program needs and before long, his optimism has spread to the entire community.

McConaughey is an actor of effortless charm and his impassioned performance is one of the best things about the film. It’s a somewhat goofy performance that frequently borders on self parody (his side of the mouth talking and his scoliosis inflicted hunch scream, ‘Hey look I’m in ...