While the premise of Remember the Titans is nothing new and the ending likewise, the fact that Titans is able to take a predictable story and make it into a heart-warming, feel-good movie is definitely worthy of mention. The driving force behind the film is Denzel Washington who plays Coach Boone, who just transferred and is put in the head coaching position in a newly-integrated school. Of course, the white players don't want to play with the blacks and the blacks feel they are better than the whites, and thus deserve to play. Coach Boone is able to coach these young men to not only play football, but also acceptance and understanding.

Whereas most high-school/college football films contain the sappy endings where everyone learns to get along, Titans goes in another direction. Learning to overcome adversity and prejudices, the team eventually does get along, but the movie doesn't stop there - they must then teach a whole town acceptance - not a small task. While running the risk of turning into a standard football film where everything goes right or a comedy, Titans goes in another direction, but unfortunately, doesn't stray far off the mainstream path. There's a few scenes of comedic relief, and the ending is happy in itself, but there's also some times of hardship. The movie does a good job of staying away from being too happy and joyous, but doesn't go far enough off the beaten path to make it original by any stretch of the imagination. Director Boaz Yakin does a good job of taking the story and making it easy to understand and identify with, but is unable to extract a truly heart-wrenching performance from Denzel where one could have been. This isn't saying that Denzel's performance is bad, quite the contrary, but it just isn't the same amount of oomph that he put into The Hurricane, and thus, no Oscar nomination this time around.

Being released during prime Oscar contention times at the box office, it seems as if Disney is trying to get a few nods for this film - maybe best film and best actor, but alas, there's nothing outstanding about this film or Denzel's performance that warrant a nomination. I'm sure Disney will be able to pull a few strings and get a nomination, but (I'm going out on a limb here) Remember the Titans won't win any Oscars. This movie is for the people - the audience will no doubt love the film, but as a work of art, it's no masterpiece.

Genres: Drama
Rated: PG - http://www.outermost.net/mra/images/rememberthetitans.gif
Runtime: 113 minutes
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