iskwobukaj This was by far the best football movie I ever saw! As a former coach, I loved the relationship with the players (beyond that of a coach). i also saw myself in the coach's growing as an individual and changing his perspective on what is important. You see the tragedy of the death of a player. The hardships of growing up, temptations outside of football and the struggles of family, growing up poor, and the demands of an unrealistic father. I like after the movie when the real coach was shown giving the eulogy at church. The coach also was offered a high paying college job but tuned it down because he realized the impact he was having on the boys he worked with. He also changed his own relationship with one player who happened to be his son.

Reno Rangan Inspired by the real story of a high school American-football coach and his team's participation in the 2004 season. The fall and rise of one of the most consistent team, especially after holding a record for the longest winning streak, what happens when it was broken unexpectedly? Do the players lose the confidence, coach be clueless, parents go crazy and media annoys them, is what neatly this film narrated. It looked nice to me and I had a good time, but it was too long and not inspiring as the other sports film based on the true events.From the director of 'Coach Carter', another decent sports film. I am not disappointed because I was not expecting to be a masterpiece, though not bad for once viewing. All the actors were good, especially it is Jim Caviezel's one of the major roles and he was amazing. American-football was always been an Americas sport, so I never interested in it except watching films based on them for inspiration. Especially after 'Conccusion', my interest on them dropped further.Whatever I said is not a reason to skip the film. As a film, it did the right thing to portray the real life achievers on the screen to boost the young sports persons. Only to me it was just an above average, but for many others, it is one of the best sports film of the year. Forget the American-football, what I liked was, achievements are good for our progress and make a career, but sometimes there's much more than making records in the games. So it's a good moral lesson film than a fine entertaining film. I won't recommend it, but definitely not a waste of time.6.5/10

Bryan Kluger The inspirational sports movie genre always musters up a successful box office receipt and draws large crowds to the theater over the weekend. From films like 'Remember the Titans' to 'Glory Road' to even 'Miracle', these movies had great performances, cohesive story telling, excellent action scenes, and a powerful message that was executed very well to pull our heart strings and entertain us in the span of two hours. I really wish that I could say the same for Thomas Carter's adaptation of the real life story of the De La Salle Spartan football team in his film 'When The Game Stands Tall'.I'm sure the studio was banking on the high school crowd to spend their hard earned money on this one, but with its bad story telling, cheesy dialogue, and terrible acting, I'm thinking this film is a few yards short of a touchdown. Director Thomas Carter has a pretty impressive resume. With films like 'Swing Kids', 'Coach Carter', 'Save the Last Dance', and 'Metro'; you know he is fully capable of making something great, but it seems like he was asleep at the wheel for this outing.'When the Game Stands Tall' follows the real life De La Salle Spartan football team where real life coach Bob Ladouceur (Jim Caviezel) has led his team along with his assistant coach Terry Eidson(Michael Chiklis) to a record shattering 151 straight wins in a row back in 2003. But the film doesn't capture the moments of their impressive winning streak. Instead it picks up around 2004, where their streak is broken due to one of their teammates being murdered before heading off to college on a major scholarship, Coach Ladouceur having a major heart attack, and another teammate who has lost his whole family and has become an orphan. It's a lot to take in, and I feel like we would have taken this journey with these characters, but the performances were all too bland.Underneath all of the blood, sweat, and tears of the his football program, is a very religious undertone, which the studio neglected to show in their trailers. De La Salle High School is in fact a very religious Catholic High School where Ladouceur not only coaches the football team, but teaches the Gospel to his students, which he incorporates onto the field as well. There is not ten minutes that goes by where we don't have a religious and somewhat inspiring speech by the coach, no matter if it is about coming together as a football team to play the perfect game, picking yourself up after a loss, or deciding to take a better job, we are hit over the head with these monologues so much so that we are taken away from the true story here.Even when the football team is forced to spend the day at a veteran rehab facility, where they see newly wounded and amputated soldiers healing, who still have the sense of humor and will to push themselves to learn to walk and talk again in order to teach these high school football players about brotherhood and picking yourself back up, you can't help but feel its cheesiness. The two plot points of the film that I thought were actually worth exploring, weren't explored at all, which was Ladouceur's wife played by the lovely Laura Dern, who does a sincere job, but given the bad script can only go so far, and is left on the sidelines, except only when she encourages her husband to take a college coaching job. The other is with one of the star football players on the team and his dad who is an abusive and mean son-of-a- bitch who thinks that winning is the only thing in life and if his son doesn't bring home the gold, he'll pay for it in bruises. Again, we see glimpses of these aspects, but it never really goes anywhere.Perhaps the one thing that Carter did extremely well here was the camera-work on the football field, which oddly enough, he had someone else direct. You can feel every hit, tackle and take down, as if it were happening to you. It's brutal, fast paced, and well edited, as you'll always be able to follow what's happening on the field. It was the highlight of the movie. It seems like Caviezel lost his ability to act in this film, as he is always an emotionless robot, void of showing any sentiment to whatever is happening around him. Chiklis is always funny and gives it his all and the rest of the football team do a decent job, but nobody is stand out. Sure, it's impressive that the real life high school football team won 151 games in a row and that the message here is a good message, but with the bland acting and its terrible script and poor execution, this game certainly doesn't stand tall.

estebangonzalez10 "People always ask me what it's like to never lose. Today I am lost."A 151 game winning streak is not something you see everyday, so when they decided to make a film about the De La Salle High School football team who managed to remain undefeated for 12 years I was sold. A lot of credit has to be given to Coach Bob Ladouceur for his accomplishments because he didn't stay undefeated with the same group of players. The streak went on for over a decade so he had to continue winning with different players and that goes on to prove what a talented guy he is. This is a fantastic story for every sport fan out there, but unfortunately the movie is full of clichés and doesn't offer anything new to the sports genre. It tries too hard to be inspirational and it includes several fictional characters that were completely unnecessary. This is such an inspiring tale in real life, that there was actually no need to make it more inspirational than what it already was. The relationship between one of the running backs and his father (Alexander Ludwig and Clancy Brown) was placed here exclusively to give it a more melodramatic arch, but it is laughable. Brown plays the over demanding father who wants his kid to break the national record for most touchdowns. The scenes are placed here exclusively in contrast to the coach's philosophy which has to do more with being a team of brothers who are there for each other. There is no I in team. We've seen these clichés in sport films many times in the past, but here the dialogue is even more cheesy and forced. I did find some of the melodramatic moments quite touching, like an eulogy the coach gives midway through the film, but most of the sports scenes felt disconnected with the dramatic ones. The film left me with a sense of wanting to learn more about this real life story, but When the Game Stands Tall doesn't do a good job of telling it. There are some great sport scenes that kept me engaged for a while, but the film fails in the dramatic department forcing inspirational moments and feeling too preachy. It is a manipulative and by the books uplifting feel good tale.The film at times felt disconnected. You are introduced to this fabulous coach (Jim Caviezel) who is always inspiring his players, but at the same time his situation at home doesn't seem to be going too well. His wife is played by Laura Dern and I felt like these family moments didn't work at all in this film because they only touched the surface of their problems. The relationship with his son (Matthew Daddario) wasn't explored either and everything was sort of left in the limbo when the second half of the film focuses exclusively on the football games and practices. The actors are fine, but the script is weak and ultimately their characters suffer from not having any depth. There is also a subplot involving some of the seniors who are heading to college that's also kind of ignored after the passing of one of the players. It is a key moment in the film, but it simply felt disconnected with everything else.