My All American Review
RYAN: We just saw My All American which is a biopic of a 1960s college football athlete. He played for the Texas Longhorns. It stars Finn Wittrock, who I really enjoy on TV’s American Horror Story. And he’s quite good in this and I like him. It co-stars Aaron Eckhart as his coach but he’s barely there. I’m not a sports fan; but I almost always enjoy sports movies – because regardless of whether or not you like sports, if a story is good, you become invested. You care about the people in it and the outcome.
KARRIE: Absolutely.
RYAN: There’s usually an underdog aspect. There’s usually an inspired rousing emotion during the climax of the film. But this film is completely devoid of everything I like about sports movies.
KARRIE: I agree. I’m the same way. Rarely do I get interested in sports. Having said that, I did just follow the rugby world cup because I was in England at the time and I enjoyed it. I also have enjoyed sports movies. I loved TV’s Friday Night Lights. I cared about the games they portrayed in that show because they made me care with their level of storytelling and the fact that those characters become very important to you. In this film, from the opening scene, where they so awkwardly shoehorn the title of the film into the dialogue to the last moment…
RYAN: Yes! I literally cringed at the beginning when I heard it. And old-age make-up on an actor should never be to the point where you have to sit there, scrutinizing the whole time whether it looks good or not. It should be obvious that it’s good and this was not.
KARRIE: Also, we have Aaron Eckhart go, “Oh? Did I coach that team?” So for a moment, I was like, ‘Oh, is this about a coach who then develops Alzheimer’s later in life?’ I actually had no idea… And then that turned out to be a strange little joke. But the dialogue there is very stilted and that level of awkwardness with dialogue and character interaction just continues throughout the movie.
RYAN: It’s a very flat film. There’s no suspense in the sports scenes, so you’re not really rooting for anything. And the characters are all one-dimensional. They’re good people who just remain good and who never seem to have made a mistake in their lives.
KARRIE: That’s true. There are also no antagonists. There is literally not a villain in this film. There’s no one who for more than two minutes wishes anything but the best for our main character. He is universally beloved.
RYAN: And maybe this is factually accurate to who these people were, but I almost think then, in adaptation to the big screen, you need to take some creative liberties to make it more watchable. Because I was incredibly bored during all of the sports scenes, during all of the character scenes, there were no subplots… Anything else that is going on extraneously in this boy’s life outside of the actual sport, which felt like it could be a subplot, turned out just to be chronological order of what’s happening in his life. So it’s just the most basic film. TV dramas are way better right now.
KARRIE: Absolutely.
RYAN: I mean, Scandal, How to Get Away with Murder… Like, dramatize it a bit! Raise the stakes before the third act.
KARRIE: I mean, when you compare this to Jason Street becoming a paraplegic on Friday Night Lights… I mean, there just is no comparison. You cared about that, with this… I struggled to keep my eyes open.
RYAN: Right, and I want to be sensitive to the fact that there are a lot of really good people who tragically die too young or who develop a disease and it’s devastating. But those stories don’t always warrant a big screen adaptation.
KARRIE: Or if they do, they have to be adapted by someone who understands narrative. And literally, for the first three quarters of the film, you are waiting for the story to start.
RYAN: For anything to happen!
KARRIE: There’s no obstacle, there’s no story. It’s literally just: he’s beloved in high school, he’s beloved in college. He continues to do well. The only vague obstacle is that he’s a little shorter than football players generally are but he very quickly surmounts it.
RYAN: I almost felt kind of ripped off in he end. Little is more manipulative than a movie that tries to get you to care about someone and then tragedy strikes. You know? Listen, he was a brilliant talent. He was obviously a very good person but this movie really saints him. Like, did he not have one misstep in his life? A person can make mistakes, be multidimensional, and still be an amazing person.
KARRIE: Yeah. They didn’t even have to give him flaws, they just had to write him as a real, three-dimensional person.
RYAN: As a human being!
KARRIE: And he was like Jesus.
RYAN: That being said, we did see this with the movie club and almost everyone in the movie club section enjoyed the film. Some said they cried, some said they were tearing up… Some said they were totally into it. Someone even said they wanted to see it again.
KARRIE: Yeah. I heard people laughing during the jokes that fell flat for me.
RYAN: You have to really love football to enjoy this.
KARRIE: Especially if you can appreciate the historical accuracy of the football being portrayed. Because evidently, for people who are football fans and we’ve heard this from members of the movie club, you can see the level of attention and accuracy of detail. We see how differently football was played in those times. For me, for a person who doesn’t care about football, that went right over my head. Did nothing for me.
RYAN: Yeah, we don’t appreciate that. You know, I didn’t watch football in the sixties and I don’t watch it now.
KARRIE: (laughs)
RYAN: There are so many great movies. The Oscar contenders are rolling out now, the best movies of the year.
KARRIE: Yeah, this opens in a season of golden films.
RYAN: Right, if this were coming out in February, March, April… maybe. But right now, it’s a Skip It.
