We Are Marshall

[DotTheEyes]

Watch the trailer...

Terminal dullness loses We Are Marshall the championship. Directed by McG, (in)famous for the bombastic Charlie's Angels franchise, the film's neither devastating, the characters are too thin, or inspiring, the tone's too funereal. It's simply an oft-insufferable bore. Based on a true story I'm confident it doesn't do justice, the film, set in West Virginia, circa the '70s, opens with the tragic death of 75 members of the Marshall University football program in an airplane crash, then depicts the program's (and the football-obsessed town's) recovery under the leadership of Jack Lengyel, an idealistic, talented young coach who most people at first doubt and then applaud.

As Lengyel, former People's Sexiest Man Alive Matthew McConaughey is dull as dishwater, not once showing why the coach was such a powerful inspiration for the team and town. Of the supporting cast, which includes a brooding Matthew Fox and an obviously-bored David Strathairn, only Ian McShane, as the angry, grieving father of a star player lost in the air disaster, impresses, delivering without a doubt the film's most affecting performance.

I celebrate McG challening himself by leaving his comfort zone, but his staid approach isn't too appealing, especially in the lifeless football action sequences (which are rarer than one might expect). It doesn't help the screenplay by first-timer Jamie Linden is groan-inducing, filled to the brim with maudlin clichés.

Overall, what should've been a powerful tribute and exploration of loss and revival is instead an uninteresting (and very overlong) disappointment which won't have audiences or critics cheering.

[Fubar]

Gee the way Okra was gushing over Matthew you'd think he was a shoe in for an Oscar!
Thanks Dot