Movie Review - We Are Marshall (2006) Starring Matthew McConaughey, Matthew Fox, Anthony Mackie, and Ian McShane

On November 14, 1970, one of the worst disasters ever to befall a sports program in the United States occurred when a chartered Douglas DC-9 airliner carrying the Marshall University football team crashed in Huntington, West Virginia. All 75 people on the aircraft, including 37 team members, 8 coaches, and 25 team boosters, perished in the accident.

The plane crash devastated both Marshall University and Huntington, the city in which the school is located. Grief ran particularly deep throughout the university and city, and recovery from the disaster was especially slow and painful. In the aftermath of the tragedy, the university almost discontinued its football program, but eventually decided to field a team for the 1971-72 season. Jack Lengyel was hired to become Marshall's new head football coach, and was tasked with rebuilding the school's football program from scratch.

In 2006, Warner Brothers and Legendary Pictures released We Are Marshall, an excellent film that dramatizes the events of November 14, 1970, and their aftermath. Starring Matthew McConaughey, Matthew Fox, Anthony Mackie, and Ian McShane, and directed by McG, We Are Marshall is an excellent film that shows how the people of Marshall University and Huntington, West Virginia were able to persevere and begin rebuilding their lives in the wake of unspeakable calamity.

The film opens on that fateful November day in Greenville, North Carolina. The Marshall University "Thundering Herd," has just lost its penultimate football game of the 1970 season. After the game, the team's coaches and players and several influential community members board a chartered DC-9 jetliner for their return flight to Huntington, West Virginia. The plane crashes in a thick forest just short of the runway at Huntington's Tri-State Airport. Everyone on board the plane is killed.

Three players who didn't make the trip to North Carolina - including defensive team captain Nate Ruffin (played by Anthony Mackie) and his best friend Tom Bogdan (Brian Geraghty) - are the only members of the football team left alive after the accident. Red Dawson (played by Matthew Fox), an assistant coach who gave up his seat on the flight at the last minute in order to drive to Virginia on a recruiting mission, also survives.

News of the crash spreads quickly throughout Huntington, and the town's citizens - nearly all of whom are passionate Thundering Herd fans - respond to the crash site to assist in whatever way they can. But it's plainly evident that there will be no survivors of the crash.

In the aftermath of the crash, questions are immediately raised as to whether or not the university should continue its football program. Paul Griffen (played by Ian McShane), whose son is one of the players killed in the crash, is an influential member of the school's governing board. He wants the program discontinued as a mark of respect for those who perished. He pressures Marshall University President Donald Dedmon (David Strathairn), into making a hasty decision to suspend the program indefinitely. But the university's students and faculty members, led by Nate Ruffin, have other ideas. Gathered on the campus grounds beneath the window of the room where the Board of Governors is meeting to decide the team's fate, they chant in unison "WE ARE MARSHALL!!" The school's the football program is saved.

Once that decision is made, the next order of business is hiring a new coach. But where to begin...? President Dedmon, who possesses an obvious indifference toward athletics in general and football in particular, suddenly finds himself desperately searching for someone - anyone - willing to take on the job. All of his calls to prospective coaches end with a firm but polite "no." Dedmon is about to give up when he hears that Jack Lengyel, a football coach from Ohio, has expressed interest in becoming Marshall's new head coach.

Lengyel (played by Matthew McConaughey) turns out to be a personable and knowledgeable but slightly eccentric individual who promises "no miracles" as Marshall's new head coach. All he can promise is that his players will always keep playing "until the last whistle blows." The task before him is daunting; with only three players from the 1970 team available to him, he must recruit the balance of a 40-man squad from anywhere he can find young men willing to play. But even before he does that, he must assemble a team of assistant coaches.

Lengyel approaches Red Dawson, the only coach of the 1970 team not to have perished in the crash. Dawson, grief-stricken and suffering from survivor's guilt, has already refused an offer from President Dedmon to become Marshall's head coach. Lengyel, however, is able to prevail upon Dawson to become an assistant coach. Lengyel also convinces President Dedmon to request a waiver from the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) that will allow Marshall to put freshman players on the field.

Will Jack Lengyel be successful in recruiting a sufficient number of players to put a team on the field for the 1971 football season? Will the NCAA bend its inflexible rule that prohibits freshman from playing? What roles do rival schools play in Marshall's attempts to rebuild its shattered football program? Watch We Are Marshall to find out!

We Are Marshall is one of those films that takes a lot of courage and compassion to make, dealing as it does with a profound tragedy that still sears the collective consciousness of Marshall University and its surrounding community, three decades after the crash that killed almost the entire football team. We Are Marshall admirably tackles its difficult subject matter with good taste, sensitivity, and restraint, while at the same time allowing viewers to understand the full force and impact of the events portrayed.

The film's ensemble cast has much to do with this success. There are no superstars here and no overwrought emotional scenes; we see only consummate professionals who quietly bring their prodigious acting skills to bear in every scene: Matthew McConaughey as Jack Lengyel, confronting the situation at hand without pretense, but with a certain compassionate toughness; Matthew Fox as Red Dawson, and Anthony Mackie as Nate Ruffin, two men who set aside their grief and guilt for the greater good of the team; David Strathairn as the college president with a distaste for football who passionately fights for the program's survival; and Ian McShane and Kate Mara, portraying two fictional community members trying to overcome bitterness as they come to grips with their personal loss. It all adds up to an appropriately low-key approach that allows viewers to understand and feel something of what it must have been like during those tragic days in 1970 and 1971.

MY VERDICT:We Are Marshall is a very good sports movie that successfully portrays the horrific tragedy that suddenly befell a university and its surrounding community in 1970. Poignant and dramatic, this remarkable film still manages to maintain a feeling of optimism in the midst of catastrophe. Highly recommended.

SOURCES:

Personal viewing of We Are Marshall

We Are Marshall DVD liner notes

We Are Marshall cast list - imdb.com