For the first act of The Express,
the latest paint-by-numbers biopic to tackle past American
black-and-white race-relations, I found myself scheming as to
how to knock the picture’s conventional and basic take on its
material. I thought about posing what I thought at the time was
a pretty good question: does The Express’
first-grade-friendly approach to conveying rough history weaken
the historical record of the profound struggle that its subject,
African-American college football star Ernie Davis (Rob Brown),
had to endure to become the first man of his color to win the
Heisman Trophy? Up to that point, all the film had done for me
was proven that Davis was a figure just like every other black
man who fought for equality depicted in cinema because it
offered no fresh narrative or thematic substance. Even though
The Express would make viewers aware of a largely unknown
and remarkable human being, I thought, it was doubtful that said
viewers would come to understand his life on the level it
deserved.
Soon after I formulated the
aforementioned criticism, however, my cynic’s hat flew off and
The Express sucked me in. After a heavy-handed opening
featuring Ernie’s youth and a standard look at the struggle of
Jim Brown (Darrin Dewitt Henson), a skilled black football
player who was slighted of the Heisman years earlier, the movie
finds its rhythm. Such an abrupt change doesn’t come because the
film suddenly gets more complex; instead, the film begins to
work as a good sports picture and the viewer can thereby
appreciate its subject within the confines of this genre. Davis
begins to play football for Syracuse University after being
recruited by Brown himself (per his old coach’s orders) and the
exercise no longer feels exclusively like a view of what it once
meant to be black in America. Instead, it’s the story of how
Davis’ exceptional skill allowed him to break down racial
barriers told through the entertaining lens of a riveting season
of college football.
As is the case in any good football
movie, Davis’ team faces ups and downs in maintaining its
undefeated record and the audience experiences these right with
the players. The movie continues to interject race-related
commentary as it reaches a climax in which Davis’ Syracuse
Orangemen prepare to play the NCAA Championship in Texas, a
region where Davis and two fellow black teammates must risk
their lives to play because of the natives’ hatred towards
blacks, but this flows organically from the material (unlike in
the first act). Even when director Gary Fleder throws in an
overwrought symbol on the topic—a shot in which Ernie shares a
frame with a waving U.S. flag in the background at the end of
the championship to symbolize his realization of the American
Dream comes instantly to mind—the film is not off-putting.
While I ultimately enjoyed The
Express for its symbiotic balance of football and history, I
won’t try to make the case that my initial view that the movie
offers a rather basic take on Davis’ career has changed. Indeed,
I stick by my introductory comment that the picture is
“paint-by-numbers.” And yet I am able to forgive it for its
shortcoming. This is mainly because, as I said, it is an
exceptionally well-made sports-movie. Director Fleder perfectly
mounts the tension of each game-play and largely avoids
football-genre gimmicks. Dennis Quaid plays Ernie’s coach at
Syracuse in a performance that likewise sidesteps traditional
sports-movie clichés and shows the coach as both a flawed human
and an enduring servant to his players. The list of
redeeming-features goes on and on. Older viewers will be able to
understand that the movie underscores everything Davis had to go
through and will simply appreciate it for its take on an era’s
college football. Young audience members will be able learn
about black-history in an approachable manner and be captivated
by the story, especially if they like football as much as I did
when I was a kid. The Express may not be profound, but it
marks a respectable effort to highlight the great
accomplishments of a running-back whose name is unfamiliar to
all too many of us.
-Danny Baldwin, Bucket Reviews
Review Published on: 10.8.2008
Screened on: 10.4.2008 at the AMC
Burbank 16 in Burbank, CA.
