Rating: 
Summary: A memorable movie and DVD....
Review: I first saw "Remember the Titans" in the theater with a group of younger friends, who did not live through the civil rights movement or the uneasy truce that existed through the next 10 years. It was interesting to see their reactions to the chasm that existed on the "battlefield" of the public school system. Although "RtT" doesn't explore the issues of the time in a substantive way, the film makes it easy to believe that the situations were real. The football field action is impressively filmed and the soundtrack is outstanding.Will Patton and a terrific cast of young actors will entertain you and make you believe for the run of the movie. And although some scenes are corny, (every scene that features Coach Yost's daughter!) you find yourself caught up in not only the game, but in what it represents as a centerpiece for a small town or city. I confess that there is no movie featuring Denzel Washington that I don't like! His performance here is solid, and he hides his natural charm well - Coach Boone is not a charming guy! In DVD, the film is enhanced with many special features that are just as entertaining as the movie. I particularly enjoyed the discussion between the two coaches and the items that were edited out of the movie. Not an award winning movie, but definitely a feel-good flick with an edge of some of the hardships that make life worth living. It's great to see such favorable and complex reviews from younger watchers; it makes you realize that the film hit its mark!
Rating: 
Summary: An uplifting experience
Review: Producer Jerry Bruckheimer ("Top Gun", "Beverly Hills Cop", "The Rock", "Flashdance", "American Gigolo") is a master of bringing crowd-pleasing films to the public. Once again, Bruckheimer hits with this inspirational human-interest story. This script was rejected dozens of times before it found its way to Bruckheimer's desk. He immediately saw the potential and began shopping it around until Disney picked it up. It is a true story of a high school football team in 1971 during the first year of forced integration in the Virginia. The team members are compelled to confront years of racial hatred and bigotry if they are to come together as a team and win. To add to the tension, a black coach is installed as head coach, replacing a popular white coach with a history of having winning seasons. Coach Boone (Denzel Washington) runs the team like a marine boot camp. He forces the boys to put their prejudices aside so they can coalesce into a winning football team. He faces obstacles within the team as well as those from the parents and the school board. Everyone is waiting for him to fail so they can pounce on him. He never gives them the satisfaction. This is an stirring story that accurately represents the open racial hostilities of the time, especially regarding forced integration. It gives us excellent character development of coach Boone and coach Yoast (Will Patton), as well as players Gerry Bertier (Ryan Hurst) and Julius Campbell (Wood Harris). Though the plot is predictable, it is such an inspirational story that it doesn't become tedious. There are a few oversimplifications of complex issues, like when the team overcomes a lifetime of bigotry in two weeks of football camp. However, there are also a number of memorable and emotional scenes. The acting is terrific across the board. Denzell Washington gives the coach a very hard edge while maintaining a certain tough charisma. Will Patton does an outstanding job portraying coach Yoast, a man stuck in the middle of forces that are ripping his life apart. This is the best performance I've seen by Patton, who has always been a solid supporting actor. The selection of Wood Harris and Ryan Hurst for the student leads is a bit of a stretch age wise (Hurst is 25 and looks older, and Harris is 31). However, both actors deliver brilliant performances, supercharged with intensity on and off the field. Eleven-year-old Hayden Panettiere is fantastic as coach Yoast's football obsessed daughter, stealing every scene in which she appears. The DVD has a good deal of interesting material including interviews with the real coaches Boone and Yoast as well as player interviews. The DTS sound on this DVD is nothing short of awesome, making the music powerful and sounds of the action on the field explosive. This film is classic Bruckheimer. It sweeps us up and gets us totally involved with the characters, while putting impediments in their way so we can root for them. I rated it an 8/10. For most viewers, this will be an uplifting experience.
Rating:
Summary: Exaggerated but wins you over anyway
Review: My high school years were about five years later than the 1971 time frame of this story of football and racial tension. In my Southern town my school was integrated and the one across town had only a handful of black students, and the tension was there, so I can identify with that and testify to younger viewers that the supercharged atmosphere in this film mostly rings true. The basic plot is described in other reviews here, so I won't belabor the point. The filmmakers do a fair job of presenting said racial tension, and even do an unusually good job with the football action, which is apparently one of the hardest things to get right in Hollywood. The boot camp atmosphere of the team's August training camp gradually brings about the same type of camaraderie that a military boot camp is meant to, where the players eventually learn to fight for one another and become a team. It's all a bit predictable, with the team eventually forging an unbeaten season and a state championship under the tutelage of their first-year black head coach, and the town naturally falls in love with the coach and the team, although of course the racially insensitive walls have to be beaten down first. I don't mind the predictability that much because the relationships are handled quite well for the most part and the quick pace of the film doesn't leave us much time to ponder over its imperfections. They just don't linger long enough to become a problem. Overall, other than a couple of bothersome inaccuracies, this is a family film about racism and football, certainly unique in that regard. Kids today hopefully will find the racism of 1971 to be brutally ugly, and we who lived it can verify its reality and open avenues of conversation on the topic. Perhaps the next generation can continue to make steps toward squashing the less obvious racism that our society still struggles with. Also, in my book any film with Denzel Washington has a leg up on any film without him, and faith in his superb qualities is rewarded here. A few words about inaccuracy: The film paints a picture of the Titans winning the state title on a last-second TD, which to me is one of the big unforgiveables here. The championship game was actually a 27-0 blowout, with the Titans so completely whipping their opponent that they ended up with negative offensive yardage. Disney apparently believes we needed the uberdrama of a last-second TD to push it over the top, whereas to me a blowout, the truth, with the Titans just having fun on the sidelines throughout the second half, could have been just as triumphant for the viewers. Another example of twisting reality to make it fit the Hollywood formula: The star linebacker who is injured in an automobile accident did not, in reality, miss the championship game. His wreck was instead AFTER the Titans had won the state title. Oh, but that doesn't give the screenplay the "win one for the Gipper" plot device. Pardon my indignance, but I just don't like to be emotionally manipulated through lies and exaggerations. Neither of these problems is as bad as presenting one member of the team as a homosexual. Even in today's football world this is not tolerated by the supermacho type that football requires, and it's an absolute meaningless joke to toss in an attempt at this kind of social harmony with the main theme of racial harmony. Science fiction. There are other inaccuracies, but mostly understandable ones for the sake of expedience (for instance, Coach Yoast actually had four daughters, and the onscreen lone daughter is a composite of the four, but that's a common practice to simplify the story for staging purposes). I'm also not a fan of the clumsy scenes of players breaking into singalongs at various times. Taking all these things into account, it's a pleasant and uplifting film that I've seen twice and won't mind viewing against someday, but not one that I've ever gushed about to any friend or coworker. I'll reserve that for less predictable and less manipulative projects.
Rating:
Summary: this movie will definately make you remember the titans!
Review: Again Denzel Washington delivers to us an action-packed movie that will make you remember the Titans forever! Though it focuses on a specific sport, this movie (I guarantee) will be loved by the many who either hate or love sports. This is truly a magnificant movie. It is set in the early 1970's (based on a true story) in TC Williams High School, a school that is about to let both blacks and whites attend this school for the first time. Of course back in that time, many white people were not impressed by the idea. The school's football coach is about to retire for the season when the white and black football teams have to join together to make one football team, all following the orders of a black football coach, Coach Herman Boon (Washington). A masterpiece that is both touching and powerful in different ways and mixes with success and tragedy. It has 2 very smart moral of the stories where racism isn't needed in the world and that practice makes perfect.
Great acting is featured here, especially by Washington (which is nothing new!). Remember the Titans will definately rock your hair off your heads! It's such a great and inspiring movie and is one of those movies that can be watched several times without getting sick and tired of it. I really like this movie because I'm against racism and this sets a good example of why racism shouldn't be needed. We need to learn that we are all different on the outside but inside we are the same. Even if we gather blacks, whites, yellows, mexicans, africans etc. in a room altogether and turn off the lights, you'll see we're the same color. Remember the Titans? You will be after viewing this movie!
Rating:
Summary: A lesson in teamwork that the world should learn
Review: Like most cinematic versions of true-life stories, "Remember the Titans," is an idealized version of reality. The main theme focuses on the two-sided coin of racial tension and racial harmony. Such moralistic tales can be heavy going but in this case, using school football as a backdrop, director Boaz Yakin creates a moving and entertaining parable. Set in Virginia around 1971, the story primarily involves the football team at T.C. Williams High. The school is in the middle of a racial integration process and seems to find the concept, of blacks and whites in physical contact, objectionable. Thrown into this already volatile mix is Coach Boone, a black man from out of state and from a lower grade of football. Boone is placed above Coach Yoast, the current, and white, head of the football department. This strange form of affirmative action is seemingly aimed at political, rather than social, goals. Not surprisingly Coach Yoast, solidly played by Will Patton, takes umbrage at this obvious slight to his tenure, experience and standing in the community. His young daughter, Sheryl, takes the news with even more disgust. Played by Hayden Panettiere, Sheryl steals every scene she's in, creating a funny and memorable character; a small curly haired girl who loves football more than life itself. Seeing the danger of his team abandoning university scholarships just to show solidarity, Yoast steps back onto the team in a subordinate role to Boone. Densel Washington gives us another strong performance as the forceful, and borderline abusive, Coach Boone. His credo seems to emphasise offence, both on the field and off. This is made clear after he challenges the worst elements of the town to face him, following an incident involving bricks flung through his home's windows. Boone's first act as head coach is to undo the racial divide among his players. Instead, the team is split along offensive and defensive lines. This forced integration soon causes conflict, allowing the audience to explore the large cast of characters in more depth. It is remarkable that so many minor characters stand out in memory and if some of them seem a little shallow, there are limits to what can be achieved in under two hours. True reconciliation, perhaps even racial harmony, does not begin building until the team is lead on a crippling morning run that finishes at the Gettysburg battle ground. Boone, who set up the event, gives a shaming speech comparing the "cause" that their forefathers fought and died for, to the smaller battles still being fought within their team. In addition, each player was given an ongoing assignment to get to know each and every other member of the team, forcing some level of understanding in most of these young men. There is a fair amount of football in the film but for me, it was the character expositions and interpersonal conflict that held my interest. I'm sure those who enjoy the game will get a lot more out of the film but the game does not overshadow the strong narrative, creative cinematography and moving soundtrack. In the end, the film's value rests on the shoulders of the two leading men rather than on football. These two honourable men may start out as adversaries but, like the team's offensive and defensive captains, they eventually become life-long friends.
Rating:
Summary: Dan- from Ohio
Review: This was a winner of a movie, I see some reviews that say that this movie was a dud, a mistake. How could you call such a movie as this what you have called it or have said about it. Maybe you could learn something from this movie about passion, love, and spirit. This movie too me was an excellent portrayal of what we should all live by: treating one another like individuals and sticking together through thick and thin no matter what. Maybe those who have considered this movie not worth the time or for the fact that it is not worth seeing, maybe, just maybe you could remember who the Titans really are.
Rating:
Summary: A lesson on racism for young and old
Review: If you have teenagers in your household, rent this movie for them. It's rated PG for a reason. This isn't a movie about football; it's a movie about the pointlessness of racism, that uses the football field as a metaphor. That the kids won't understand that doesn't matter, they'll absorb the message while being too entertained to notice. Disney always produces movies that both young and old can appreciate and so the adults will enjoy the movie too. The script may not be very original and the end result may not reach any deeper than the life-lessons it sets out to teach, but it teaches them with a lot of heart and there's a lot to be said for that.
In this true story, Denzel Washington plays Herman Boone, a no-nonsense football coach who has been handed the job of Head Coach at a high school in Alexandria, Virginia that has suddenly been desegregated. It's the early 70's. His players consist of the school's white football team and the new black kids who played for their former all-black high school team. That these two factions don't want to have anything to do with each other is an understatement. During football camp, through the will and drive, the insight and courage, of Coach Boone, they are forced to treat each other with respect, which turns out to be the first step towards friendship, and they become a more unified team. This all happens a little too easily, but then, it's a feel-good Disney movie, not a three and a half hour Oliver Stone saga. Once school starts, they face the same conditions they faced going into camp: they step into a desegregated school environment that is now segregated internally. The community at large is more to blame than the kids themselves, but that doesn't make the students any less prejudiced. As the football season unfolds, racial lines become more and more blurred for the team members to the disdain of all others around them. Friendships gets tested and relationships get nurtured, on and off the field, including the growing but guarded friendship that takes root between Coach Boone and his assistant coach, Bill Yoast, (a convincing performance by Will Patton). Yoast was head coach before he was forced out to make room for Boone, and is a hard-edged but, we slowly find out, open minded and big hearted, member of the white community.
Denzel Washington puts in his usual winning performance. One wishes that his character was written with a little more depth and was less of the Cheerleader-for-the-Movement variety. What he does with the script that he's handed, however, is memorable. In fact, you can tell Washington is relaxed and enjoying himself here; he doesn't exactly have to stretch his acting skills to nail this character, and it's obvious that it's a character he believes in. Hayden Penettier who plays Coach Yoast's daughter Sheryl, is hilarious as a 7-or-so year old tomboy who calls her father "coach" instead of "dad" and knows more about football than most of the players do. She's a very talented young actress and this role should land her more significant ones. She very nearly stole the show. The various members of the football team are a well-rounded and capable group of actors even if they're your standard stereotyped bunch of characters. They're the primary source of fun in the movie, filling up the screen with various locker-room antics. The strongest of these characters is Gary Bertier, the white team captain (played by Ryan Hurst) and Julius Campbell (played by Wood Harris) the strongest minded black player, who start out as enemies and whose evenutal friendship plays a pivitol role in the film. Remember the Titans is the kind of movie Hollywood is continually accused of not making: a movie aimed at kids that doesn't pander to sex and violence. That it isn't Oscar material should be of no consequence. It may not have won any awards, but that doesn't make it any less worthy of an audience.
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful true story adapted to the screen with passion !!
Review: High School Football would never be the same in a Viginia town when Coach Boone (Denzel Washington) & Coach Yoast (Will Yoast) bring a team & town together during the busing crisis of the 70's. "Remember the Titans" is a family movie which tells the busing story to us all and a very passionate story. How a group of people learned to cope with a very volatile integration situation in Virginia through football. This movie is well casted and really shows us the acting abilities of several unknown actors but especially Washington. The football playing is a key to this movie & it delivers. We begin with the team & town, the painful journey to unity. As football and winning become the focus, so does this unbelievable tale of a communities ability to bond. A keeper. This is a movie you will gladly welcome into your DVD library. The extras, especially the interviews with the real Coach Boone & Yoast shows this passion between them & all still "Remember the Titans" triumph even today 30 years later.
Rating:
Summary: We need more family movies.
Review: I thought this was a great movie. It was a movie that my kids could watch with me. However, the one thing racism)they are trying to conquer in the movie, still lives on today. I would recommend this movie to anyone. It was a great movie.
Rating:
Summary: the most powerful movie I have ever seen
Review: Being African-American,I was told by one of my best white friends to see this movie.I watched it when it came on TV the first time and I sat through the entire three hours.The movie was well written and acted.But the story was so powerful the impact stayed with me for nearly a week.I felt like I was hit by every speeding train and 18 wheeler on this world.If you are a parent and don't want to teach your child racism,W-A-T-C-H T-H-I-S M-O-V-I-E.Better yet,have your child watch this movie and tell them the truth about the history of what story the movie is telling and those whose lives were impacted by this event.
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