Though it's tops at box office, 'Remember the Titans' proves not so memorable

Disney's latest blockbuster, "Remember the Titans," is not a bad movie, but it won't leave a lasting impression. It's the kind of item that coolly rolls off the Hollywood studio production line these days, and gets scooped up by the American movie-going world like candy.

The film has something for everyone: sentimentality, football action, strife, courage, redemption, attractive actors and even a few (occasionally funny) jokes. It should appeal to men and women equally and is an excellent date movie. Football players should like it, though it is not principally a football movie.

"Remember the Titans," loosely based on the story of a real Virginia high school, is set in 1971 after the civil-rights movement. The film stars Denzel Washington as Coach Boone, the new football coach at a formerly all-white public school that has been forced to integrate by the local school board. The white students, parents and the previous coach (Will Patton) all sharply disapprove of the school board's decision and are openly hostile toward Boone.

Patton's character, Coach Yoast, unwilling to work "under" Boone, accepts a job at another school. His players threaten to sit out the season in protest, however, and he consents to stay on as Boone's defensive coordinator. The two slowly become friends.

The shift in Yoast's attitude toward Boone highlights the "racist with a heart of gold" theme that pervades the movie. The characters aren't really bigots. They just act that way until they've been educated properly.

"Remember the Titans" wants very much to be a heart-warming tale about overcoming racial tension. The filmmakers take great pains to emphasize all the seemingly insurmountable obstacles in the way of building a successful football team that has to "deal with race."

The football team is itself a metaphor for the racially mixed school community as a whole, which must overcome the stereotypes and mistrust that is instilled by the previously segregated system. Those characters who reject integration are painted as misguided relics of a paternalistic society in which African Americans were routinely looked down upon. In true Hollywood style, the "bad guys" are thoroughly evil (at least at the beginning of the film), and the "good guys" — especially Washington — are saints.

The biggest problem in "Remember the Titans" is that there is, in fact, no difficulty whatsoever in dealing with race. The ease with which the obstacles to racial harmony are overcome undercuts the film's premise.

For instance, after a scant two days at training camp and a couple of inspirational lectures from Washington, the team is playing great football and joking about each other's mammas in the locker room. Teammates who a few scenes earlier wouldn't shake hands with each other are suddenly singing and dancing like long-time friends. Personally, I didn't buy it. Upon the team's return to town, a white player's parent asks, "What did they do up there, brainwash 'em?" It would seem so.

There are many similarly sudden reversals in the film that collectively cheapen the moral of the story. When Boone's initially distrustful white neighbors cheer for him late in the film, it is not because they've gained a profound new respect for their neighbors. It's because Boone's team was able to win a few football games. Nearly every character undergoes some sort of radical attitude shift by the end of the film, and these changes all feel forced and implausible.

The filmmakers attempt to provide some dimensionality to the generally macho characters by showing moments of weakness. Ryan Hurst is particularly good as the team captain, though I couldn't help but recall his performance as the doofus paratrooper in "Saving Private Ryan" who loses his hearing from a shell explosion and manages to communicate the whereabouts of Matt Damon to an impatient Tom Hanks. He has a certain subtle bumbling quality that didn't really fit with his captain-of-the-football-team persona.

My favorite character was Cheryl, the annoying, football-crazed daughter of Coach Yoast, who is 10 years old going on 40. She calls her own dad "Coach" and reminded me of the little girl from the Pepsi commercials. The young actress, Hayden Panettiere, has made more screen and TV appearances than just about everyone in the film besides Washington and Patton. Panettiere could easily have her name listed under the dictionary definition of "precocious," but she's not very believable as a 10-year-old.

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"Remember the Titans" makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside, even if only until you reach the door of the theater — and while not really making much of a point, it does at least raise some important issues: racial tolerance, fairness and the need to overcome ingrained prejudices.

Washington remarks at one point, "I may be a mean cuss, but I'm a mean cuss to everyone out there on that football field." This is the kind of role that Washington can do in his sleep, and while I liked both him and Patton in the film, I wish they had been given more challenging material with which to work.

On the whole, the cliched writing and predictable storyline of "Remember the Titans" left nothing to really get excited about, but the film is good Hollywood entertainment with plenty of testosterone-driven football montage scenes to break up the lackluster dialogue. One montage in particular was shot on 16-millimeter film, giving it an NFL video-like quality that was visually interesting.

The film was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, who also brought us "Con Air," "Armageddon" and "Coyote Ugly," all of which were generally panned by critics but loved by audiences. Go figure. If you liked those films, you will probably enjoy "Remember the Titans." Roger Ebert summarized the Bruckheimer oeuvre best in a review of "Coyote Ugly" when he asked, "Do you get the feeling these movies are assembled from off-the-shelf parts?"