Even lesser hacks than McG would have trouble making Jamie Linden's screenplay float, but I never thought it was possible to blow every big inspirational moment. Maybe because they are all the same.
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12/21/06
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We Are Marshall (2006)
48
%
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Reviews Counted:124
Fresh:60
Rotten:64
Average Rating:5.8/10
Consensus: Matthew McConaughey almost runs We Are Marshall to the end zone, but can't stop it from taking the easy, feel-good route in memorializing this historic event in American sports.
Theatrical Release:Dec 22, 2006 Wide
Box Office: $43,532,294
Synopsis: In November 1970, a plane carrying almost the entire Marshall University football team, its staff and fans crashed, killing 75 people in all and devastating the small town of Huntington, West... [More]
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, David Strathairn, Matthew Fox, Huntley Ritter
Director: McG
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Reviews for We Are Marshall
Matthew Fox, who is supposed to be playing second fiddle to Matthew McConaughey, actually upstages the bigger star by doing everything right that the Texan does wrong (sounding and acting like Yosemite Sam doesn't always work)
12/21/06
mirrors every other football flick we've recently seen
12/21/06
Its power dissipates by spreading over too many characters without grounding us enough in their stories, relying too much on signifiers of loss and moving on that are too familiar.
12/21/06
For a movie about the effects of tragedy on the people in a football town, We Are Marshall doesn't care about the grief process, its characters, or, most shockingly, football.
12/21/06
...the homework was done to create an evenly paced, sometimes melancholy, sometimes action packed drama that has a lot of heart.
12/21/06
The film is emotionally affecting without being particularly distinguished.
12/21/06
Top CriticAs the world's biggest sucker for uplifting jock movies, I can heartily endorse the skillfully manipulative We Are Marshall.
12/21/06
Top CriticMcConaughey's performance is oddly comic but actually serves to counter more traditional interpretations of a stoic coach leading his charges.
12/21/06
It's a powerful subject, but director McG and screenwriter Jamie Linden haul out every cliché in the playbook.
12/21/06
Among sports movies, We Are Marshall scores enough for respectability.
12/21/06
Top CriticThe movie goes through the usual paces with a certain panache and a handful of interesting performances, but there's almost not enough story to support a movie, and it's so overblown in places it's unintentionally funny.
12/21/06
Syrupy, vapid, unfocused.
12/21/06
We Are Marshall is manipulative and hokey and formulaic, and, often, overly sentimental. But it is also nearly impossible to dislike.
12/21/06
Bright spots can't get at the script's failure to make this into a story about something bigger than sports, in the way Invincible, Miracle and Go Tigers did.
12/21/06
It's not that We Are Marshall does anything groundbreaking -- and that dependability is part of its appeal. It's an undeniably compelling story, and maybe it would make you cry just as hard even if it weren't gracefully told.
12/21/06
An inspiring story that shows how sports can be a healing force in times of loss and grief.
12/21/06
A depressingly mechanical sports drama that seems not to have been written and directed so much as home assembled, Ikea-style, by pictorial instruction.
12/21/06
Top CriticMay be noted as the one that flipped McConaughey from underachieving movie idol to terrific character actor.
12/21/06
'Restrained' and 'tasteful' are not words normally associated with McG, the director best known for countless music videos and the Charlie's Angels movie franchise. We Are Marshall could change that.
12/21/06
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