A talented but troubled high-school rugby star gets a second shot at redemption after being sentenced to serve time in a Salt Lake City boys' home and landing a coveted spot on the famed Highland High School rugby team in this inspirational sports drama from director Ryan Little (Saints and Soldiers, Everything You Want). Rick Penning (Sean Faris ) was the star player on his Arizona rugby team until his life took a turn for the worse. Now, after a fateful brush with the law, Rick finds himself
out of the spotlight and forced to ponder the consequences of his actions in a Salt Lake City juvenile detention center. As fate would have it, however, Salt Lake's famed Highland High rugby team could use a player like Rick. With a little help from coach Larry Gelwix (Gary Cole), Rick may even be able to lead the Highland High team to the national championships. When Rick discovers that the team they'll be competing against is none other than his old team from Arizona, which is coached by his father, Richard Penning (Neal McDonough), the deciding game takes on a newfound sense of gravity in the eyes of the ambitious young athlete. Arielle Kebbel and Sean Astin co-star. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
This earnest indie production comes across like formulaic fiction while taking cues (and recycling cliches) from the 'inspirational sports drama' playbook.
As directed by Ryan Little and written by David Pliler, Forever Strong dredges up every sports movie cliché and stereotype ever invented. (Cue the slow-mo in the rain.)
The movie is well shot and edited, the rugby scenes are enjoyable (if likely puzzling to the uninitiated) and Strong's earnestness excuses at least some of its predictability.
The whole package here is warmed-over mush from a hundred other sports movies, a tale padded out with game footage, training sequences, absurd coincidences, life lessons that teach nothing and wasted casting.
Created under the vague guise of "inspirational cinema," Strong is a sloppy, soggy pile of clichés, unable to sort itself out, grow a pair of cinematic cojones, and actually try to subvert some of its rancid formula.
There's something disheartening about seeing real-life stories and their inevitable complexities put through the Hollywood sausage machine and transformed into bland parables.
It's definitely possible to make artful message movies -- just consider the filmography of ex-Mormon iconoclast Richard Dutcher -- but Forever Strong is generic faith-and-redemption fare, devoid of nuance.
While it does boast some of the expected tropes and formulas of cinematic sports dramas, it's a competent, entertaining and involving movie that features a decent message about self-discipline and redemption.
American rugby is the setting for this earnest sausage party of macho posturing, bro-dacious life lessons and value-focused sportsmanship that give wayward teens the strength to rise above sinful temptations.
It's a pretty decent film. There's a lot of cliches and the classic father-son relationship issue that we all see in sports films, but it wasn't too bad.
Rick Penning had a pretty bad attitude for most of the film, but somehow I managed to like his character near the end. I like to see characters develop into a
completely different one, and he definitely did. I felt like the video was sort of rushed. I didn't really get a good background on Rick until after the car accident. It was okay though.
I'd most likely watch it again. :)
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