Express
Year: 2008
Grade: B+
Country: USA
Director: Fleder
Review| fine sports biopic about ernie davis, the outstanding syracuse running back who became the first african-american to win the heisman trophy award. of course his life was cut short. anytime i hear about one of these guys i think about steve prefontaine or james dean or hank gathers as well as the poem “to an athlete dying young” by a.e. housman. there is a mixed emotion with these great athletes – obviously there is the sense of loss the questions about how great they could have been, but there is also something to be said about dying before your fame dies. or, as housman puts it: “Now you will not swell the rout || Of lads that wore their honours out, || Runners whom renown outran || And the name died before the man.” it’s easy for the naysayer to say that prefontaine was overrated or that ernie davis never would have been as good as jim brown, but we can never know. what if lance armstrong had been killed by his cancer rather than beating it and then the world in the tour de france, seven times, in a row? what if jordan had retired on top after winning his sixth nba championship instead of coming back and being just good on a crappy team?
i don’t know how accurate the film is, there’s certainly some fiction peppered throughout to make things more compelling, but the facts seemed basically in line with what i know about the guy and what i’ve learned since watching it.
Watched in theater