Witness the inspirational true story of a real American hero. Rising from the humblest of beginnings, Ernie Davis (Rob Brown) overcame impossible odds to become the first African-American to win college football’s greatest honor – the Heisman Trophy. Starring Dennis Quaid as the hard-nosed coach that helped drive him to greatness, The Express is a powerful story of triumph on and off the field that will have you cheering again and again!Based on the real-life story of college football hero Ernie Davis, The Express will remind some moviegoers of the heart-tugging Brian’s Song. Ernie Davis was a star athlete at Syracuse University and the first African American to win the Heisman Trophy. Unlike other winners of that era, he wasn’t allowed to attend his banquet dinner because the venue didn’t serve blacks. He died of leukemia at the age of 23 in 1963. That element of his story is well known to football fans. What the filmmakers concentrate on in The Express isn’t just Davis’ athletic prowess, but the relationship he had with his coach Ben Schwartzwalder (Dennis Quaid). Rob Brown (Stop-Loss, Coach Carter) lends both gravity and charm to the role of Davis. He plays Davis as a strong willed and moral young man who refuses to let racism and discrimination dominate his life. He joins a Jewish fraternity, gets along with his predominantly white teammates and shows respect for his family and coach. The film is wise not to present Schwartzwalder as wholly color blind. Though not overtly racist, he makes a few references that would not be acceptable in modern-day society. Overall though, the coach doesn’t care what color his players are, as long as they share the common goal of winning. Quaid is well cast in the role, adding just the right amount of gruff mannerisms without becoming a caricature. Brown has the difficult task of adding suspense to a character where most of the audience already knows his fate. Still, he manages to keep moviegoers on their toes–hoping for a miracle that we know will never come. –Jae-Ha Kim
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January 9, 2006
#1
WHO IS THE IGNORANT PERSON THAT SPOILED THE MOVIE BY TELLING HOW IT ENDED IN THE PRODUCT DESCRIPTION. I WAS GOING TO PURCHASE THE DVD. I WAS VERY EXCITED ABOUT WATCHING IT. THEN, I READ THE PRODUCT DESCRIPTION. THANKS FOR TELLING ME ERNIE DAVIS DIED AT AGE 23 OF LUEKEMIA. NOW, I WILL NOT PURCHASE IT.
January 9, 2006
#2
This movie does a great job in portraying how things were in the late 50s but it takes too many liberties with the historical facts. First, Ernie Davis was striken with lukemeia while preparing for the College All Star Game in Chicago, not the Coaches All Ameican Game as the movie shows. Ernie played in that game in Buffalo and was booed by the crowed for not signing with the Bills, who offered him more money than the Cleveland Browns did. Second, in the flash back scene showing Jim Brown signing his first pro contract with the Browns in 1957, Art Modell’s name is mentioned. Modell did not own the team then, he bought the team four years later. Lastly, the movie shows the Syracuse team travelling to Dallas for the 1960 Cotton Bowl on a bus. I find it hard to believe that a team playing for the national championship even back then took a bus for a trip half way across the country. Still, however, this is a good movie for the story it tells.
January 9, 2006
#3
It is sadly ironic for a stale, 129 minute production to be called The Express. Like most Hollywood sports biopics, the extraordinary life of Ernie Davis has been reduced to a bunch of cliché plot points, and thus extremely predictable; you could go into the movie knowing nothing about football and guess what’s going to happen two hours later. Yet, the problem is not that Ernie Davis led a boring or miserable life, it’s that the cinematic retelling of it makes it seem like it was. To put it bluntly, it’s a director’s failure.
The film kicks off depicting Ernie Davis as a child in the 40′s, played by Justin Martin, who discovers his talent in running when he outruns a group of typical racist schoolyard bullies. From there, racism becomes the only recurring theme of the movie.
Fast forwarding many years later, the next scene depicts Davis, now played by Rob Brown, in his teenage years as he rises to the status of football sensation at his local high school in Elmira, N.Y. Sought after by many colleges due to his status, Davis is eventually recruited by tough-but-reasonable coach Ben Schwartwelder (played by Dennis Quaid) into Syracuse College, who uses Davis’s childhood inspiration Jim Brown (Darrin Dewitt Henson) to bait him in. From then on, despite facing racism everywhere, Davis helps the Syracuse Orangemen win the cotton bowl and ultimately become the #1 ranked team in the 1959 season.
Directed by Gary Fleder and adapted by Charles Leavitt, the film is packed to the brim with sport drama clichés. Too-tough-but-kind-inside coach, check. Fierce, racist, opposing teams who are violent, full of themselves and lack a sense of morality, check. In fact, the film goes so far to fulfill these clichés that the directors have even fabricated material- Leavitt admits that the supposed 1958 game at Tar Heels Stadium in North Carolina, in which angry racist crowds chucked glass bottles and verbal abuse at the team, was inaccurate on all accounts.
Moreover, the supposed racial tension verses the Longhorns in the 1960 cotton bowl match was also pure fabrication. Bobby Lackey, quarterback for the University of Texas in the game depicted recalls: “How are you going to say the N-word in a football game and spit on somebody? Coach Royal would not have put up with that kind of behavior. It was a long time ago, but I know we shook hands and told him nice game and that his team deserved to win.” Clearly, without any angry racist teams that actually played against the Orangemen, Gary Fleder had to resort to fabrication to get his point across, which certainly hurts the historical accuracy of the film.
It is worth noting that director Gary Fleder should be credited for the excellent chase sequences professionally shot with the hand camera- the shaky angles give the film one of its few realistic tinges. The only downside to that is that the angles aren’t exactly groundbreaking or original- they only serve to remind the audience of better sport epics such as “Remember the Titans” or “Glory Road.”
Rob Brown’s performance as the near-saintly Ernie Davis is forgettable at best, but it’s understandable as the weak storyline and script undermine his performance. The problem is, the movie won’t let him be a real person, and thus nobody can relate to him. As one other critic put it, “It’s the complaint many people have had about Superman over the years. If he never does anything wrong, and if nothing can stop him, then what’s interesting about him?”
In stark contrast, Quaid’s performance as Coach Ben Schwartzwalder is quite the opposite: although Quaid still suffers from a lame script and overdone clichés, he still manages to shine as his character’s underlying prejudices are brought forth and challenged by his relationship with Davis. In a memorable scene where he butts head with Davis, he manages to deliver this epic line: “I must like winning a little more than I dislike black people.”
For a movie that has “Remember the Titans” written all over, you would definitely expect more from The Express. Luckily, the solid performance given by Quaid and the intense action sequences are the film’s saving grace. But for those who already have ESPN Classic or “Remember the Titans” on DVD, don’t even bother.
January 9, 2006
#4
The football footage is excellent in The Express. There’s two making of featurettes on the DVD that describe how they made most of the football scenes, those are well worth watching. I usually avoid all the making of films, and these two are an exception. They hired some real football players, and ran real plays. It shows in the film.
The story line on the other hand, runs a bit long. This film is 2 hours, and could easily be shortened with no ill effects by 30 minutes. As the director says in the making of featurette, it’s a three act film – his youth, college football days, and his disease. The three acts are very clear while watching, and they each ran just a bit too long. Some of the build up of conflict in the football games ran just a bit too long.
In general the acting was good. There aren’t any weak performances, but then again, there aren’t any standout excellent performances.
There are many who nit pick over the details, and sadly those people have really missed the point of the film. Not only do the very end credits say that the Virginia game was manipulated for dramatic effect, the director admits other liberties with truth for dramatic effect. If the errors were massive and critical to the story line, I would agree that is a problem. However they are so minor as to be insignficant.
The filming itself was wonderful. The director used different processing techniques to get different film color and effects. The transition around over saturated color, color, and black and white was well done. The sound was really just so so, no really great enveloping sound, just good front channel work. The music soundtrack frequently detracted when it became melodramatic.
Why three stars? It was a good flim, but nothing spectacular. Fundamentally, the story is wonderful. But in the end, the filming, the acting, the editing, all made the film feel a bit white washed for the era.
It is rated PG. There’s a few swear words and one scene in bed between Ernie Davis and his girlfriend that is slightly suggestive. Otherwise, this is an excellent family film for all ages.
We really couldn’t wait to see this film. Most of the football footage was filmed at Lane Tech High School in Chicago, there are a lot of students and faculty in the audience. Northwestern University was a stand in for the Cotton Bowl. And most of the street scenes were filmed in and around Chicago. It was fun to know when this film was shot and how long it took to end up on DVD.
January 9, 2006
#5
The Express is an “inspirational” biopic tale of Ernie Davis’s life, depicting a warped reality of racial tension in the 1950′s. Ernie Davis (Ron Brown), was born and raised in Pennsylvania before moving to New York, where he was recruited to play football for Syracuse University. The film follows Davis’s trials and tribulations as he struggles with fitting into the predominantly white football team, and inadvertently becoming a voice in the Civil Rights Movement. He learns to deal with his closed-minded coach, Ben Shwartzwalder (Dennis Quaid), and eventually becomes the first African American to win the Heisman Trophy, an award given to the best college football player of the year.
Ron Brown gives a winning performance portraying a calm and realistic Davis, albeit in a lacklustre tone. Dennis Quaid, however, provides the zest in the film, portraying Shwartzwalder as a coach transitioning from the old school of white supremacist thinking to the new school of racially equal thinking, much like the rest of America in this period of racial tensions. At times, though, the energy in Shwartzwalder’s character tends to overshadow the real hero of the film, Davis, who occasionally gets sidelined as the film chooses to focus on the internal struggles playing out within Shwartzwalder. As the story shifts its focus from Davis to Shwartzwalder, the “inspirational” meaning behind the film is lost on the viewer, as the real hero and his grapplings concerning racism are forgotten for the mindlessly trivial problems of the coach.
The cinematography somewhat redeems the film, however, with breathtaking scenes of a crisp, vividly coloured autumn in New York, and the rustic architectural charm of the campus in Syracuse University. The football games sprinkled generously throughout the movie were also very exciting, and football fan or not, you will be drawn to the sheer power and energy that the games possess.
The film includes a scene where Syracuse goes to play a visiting match against West Virginia. When they arrive at the stadium, the racist fans of West Virginia attack the team for having black players. The scene is very intense, as it explores racial bigotry, but is also entirely untrue, for Syracuse had never played a game against West Virginia that year. This is a major historical inaccuracy, and creative license has been taken past the limit as the writers of the film manage to fabricate an entire football game with an aggressive audience.
There are also a variety of other creative liberties taken throughout the film in order to enhance the dramatic racial tension in the football games. In another football game shown when Syracuse goes to play the Cotton Bowl Championships against the University of Texas, in which after Syracuse wins the game, a Texas player spit on Davis and called him the n-word. Players from the University of Texas dispute that scene, claiming that they just shook hands and peacefully walked off the field.
The Express is a movie that entirely distorts history, and also shifts the focus of the story from the real hero, Davis, to his coach, Schwartzwalder. Creative license is taken much too far, and detracts from what would have been an inspiring biopic. The acting and cinematography are brilliant, but unfortunately is not enough to warrant a viewing of the film. If you’re an avid football fan, you can go for the thrilling games, but otherwise it’s recommended to keep your distance.