When the Game Stands Tall

[StevePulaski]

When the Game Stands Tall (2014)
Directed by: Thomas Carter

Jim Caviezel in When the Game Stands Tall.

Rating: ★½

When the Game Stands Tall accomplishes the rare feat of being a film one has the ability to instantly forget about upon seeing the film, unless, unlike myself and a good portion of others, they haven't been exposed to a plethora of sports films and sees the majority of them as films ripe with cliches and conventions. When the Game Stands Tall markets its emphasis on brotherhood, courage, and a faith-based angle as points of subversion, when most people know that these elements exist in other sports films, and the good ones wisely don't need to hamfist their points and remind you at every turn.

The film follows the football program at De La Salle High School in Concord, California, which is world-famous for maintaining an unprecedented 151-game winning streak, shredding the school record and all other national records before it. The movie focuses on the most interesting part of this football program, which is not games one through one-hundred and fifty-one, but game number one-hundred and fifty-two, an indescribably painful experience for everyone involved. How does a team carry on and maintain composure after knowing they tarnished their school's prized record with a tragic loss.

Well, as When the Game Stands Tall depicts it, through the regurgitation of empty buzzwords and heavy-handed exchanges about brotherhood and bonding in ways that make Full House lectures seem subversive. In addition to following the football team players, which seem like nothing more than a plethora of caricatures, we take a look at the team's coaching staff, particularly head coach Bob Ladouceur (The Passion of the Christ's Jim Caviezel) and his relationship with the team. Following a heart attack, Ladouceur steps down from coaching, temporarily putting Terry Edison (Michael Chiklis) as the head coach of De La Salle, and following the devastating loss, tries to help them regain composure as a team and a brotherhood. Furthermore, Ladouceur's time off gives him an opportunity at trying to connect with his son Michael (Gavin Casalegno), who sees this as a too-little-too-late opportunity when all he has been to him during the last few years is a coach rather than a father figure.

Had writer Scott Marshall Smith not blanketed De La Salle's monumental achievement and true impact on high school football with sensationalism and generalizations instead of humor emotions, When the Game Stands Tall could've went somewhere interesting and provided for a human look at the players on the team. Instead, we get a film that desperately panders to the crowd that wants to see some good-natured behavior on screen in the most superficial form, and annoyingly tacking on faith-based elements in what seems to be a last minute nod to the high school's Christian roots. The sole moments the film feels authentic and intriguing is when we see an demanding and dictating father trying to push his son into living the life he wants him to live rather than the life his son wants himself to lead, which provides for some solid, believable drama that isn't depicted in films nearly enough. However, those moments are few and far between, intermixed with redundant motivational speeches and sensational football footage.

When the Game Stands Tall is a film so deeply-rooted in buzzwords, cherry picked one-liners, and moralizing, it essentially forgets its message and scrambles to create meaning and inspire by dropping words like "courage," "commitment," "sacrifice," and "brotherhood" in a pathetically empty manner, making this one of the coldest films of the year with some of the warmest ideas.

Starring: Jim Caviezel, Michael Chiklis, Laura Dern, Alexander Ludwig, Gavin Casalegno, and Clancy Brown. Directed by: Thomas Carter.