Movie Review

The Express

“The Express” is based on the college career of Ernie Davis, the first African American to ever win the Heisman. A movie like this comes out every year, and every time we know it’s going to be about standing up to injustice. Very rarely do these types of movies escape their Movie of the Week themes and this movie runs along those same lines but that’s not to say that this story did not need to be told. I was very happy I got to learn a little bit about Ernie Davis and I feel the movie’s biggest strength is that its concentration is less on the football games and more on Davis and what he represented to the African American population and the country. The movie is anchored by two good actors in Dennis Quaid and Rob Brown as well. If you don’t remember Brown, he played Sean Connery’s young protégé in “Finding Forrester,” and yes, even did the tango in that Antonio Banderas’ movie “Take the Lead," and gave two very good performances in each. Here it’s his movie and he runs with it just like Davis with a football.

As a young man living in Elmira, Davis was not only chastised for being black but for also having a stutter. If there was one thing he did know though, it was that he could run fast. No surprise he decided making a statement in life through actions instead of words. Brown plays the college age Davis, recruited by coach Ben Schwartzwalder (Denis Quaid) to play running back at Syracuse. He is one of three black players on the team and as if you didn’t already know, he would go on to become the teams key standout. He led the team to an undefeated season in 1959 and would go on to win the highest honor for any college football player.

Davis is represented as nothing less than a black superhero on the field and while self-indulgent at times, the movie is nonetheless an important and dramatic telling of how he not only took on the racist principles of college sports but also had to contend with being dubbed the next Jim Brown and Leukemia right before his pro-career ever got started. He was a football player but more important than football he was a fighter who did his speaking on the field. And in return, much of the racism he faced was metaphorically dished out to him when on the field. The best games in this movie are not the hardest hitting or fastest paced ones but the ones that have the political backdrop. Games at West Virginia and Texas, where bigoted fans boo and throw things at him. He is repeatedly kicked and punched by other players, with no help from the referees, and his coach won’t let him score for fear of riot. The game in Texas gets particularly dicey because of the civil rights riots and school integration debates in the South, two things angering Texans at the time. Davis’ reaction in both games shows his strength and is inspiring. Racism is a little different here. There’s not a lot of name calling. Segregation seems to have passed in most places, but violence never goes away which is a sad reality of this movie.

There is a scene earlier in the film where Davis’ grandfather asks Jim Brown how people like them are treated in college. It’s a resonating question, especially on the football field where we see bone-crunching hits laid on Davis, not just tackling but hits meant to take someone out for good. Director Gary Fleder, a guy known for being a David Fincher copycat with thrillers such as “Kiss the Girls” and “Don’t Say a Word," doesn’t skip out on the brutality of the game or let us miss the fact that people were violently opposed to playing against a black player. At times Fleder’s hero worship is too much. It seems like every time Davis scores a touchdown a glorified slow-motion profile shot is taken of him with flashing cameras going off in the background. He does a nice job with the football scenes though and then knows to stay out of the way and let the story tell itself.

The acting is hindered by the fact that Davis is really the only character who has really been developed, so in essence, it's really Rob Brown’s movie. It’s also a star-making turn. Brown gives a courageous portrayal of inner-strength, innocence, and good-natured spirit. He builds Davis into a smart and undeterred civil rights hero, a man who fought against adversity primarily through his own superior skill during every time he had the football in his hands. You believe him physically in the role as well. The only other actor allowed to even come close to him here is Dennis Quaid as the grizzled, hard-nosed, seemingly always yelling or giving inspirational speeches football coach. The guy is a cliché in every way but there are moments when he’s allowed to break out of inspirational football coach mode and become a real person, like a scene where he warns Davis against dating white girls cause no one would ever accept it. It doesn’t show him in the best light but it’s real and it jives with the political climate at the time.

The final twenty minutes or so elevate the movie to being heartbreaking, detailing Davis’ illness which cut short his football career and life. Buried in between is a beautiful scene where he passes the torch on to running back Floyd Little (Chadwick Boseman). “The Express” is a movie that loves and respects its hero and when it’s not working overtime in order to make him look like a saint it’s a brutal, inspiring, and at times even powerful account of a man who used skill to speak louder than words ever could.

Craig's Grade: B

A	10.9%
B	41.8%
C	31.8%
D	15.3%
F	0.3%