Btexxamar I like Black Panther, but I didn't like this movie.

Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Tss5078 The one thing you can always count on when watching a football film, is that it's going to be exciting. It doesn't matter if it's a true story, like When The Game Stands Tall, or a made up one like Friday Night Lights. It doesn't matter if the team has won 100 straight games or lost 100 straight games. Every film about football is going to be exciting, so what makes one better than the other? The personalities involved, it all comes down to who the film is focused on and this film has it's eyes on the prize. Jim Caviezel stars as Bobby Ladouceur, one of the most successful high school football coaches of all-time. Ladouceur became a national celebrity, not only because of a big winning streak, but also because of the way he incorporated family values and religion into his coaching, trying to make his player more well-rounded individuals. Caviezel was outstanding, as he is in everything, but after watching six seasons of Person of Interest, it's almost disappointing seeing Caviezel in a role where he doesn't kill anyone. The other focus of the film is Alexander Ludwig, who portrays Chris Ryan, a kid who has all the talent in the world, but has to decide, if he's pushing himself toward greatness for himself or because of a psychotic father. Ludwig always gets second billing, but as with the Hunger Games, nothing would be as good without him. He is the unsung hero of this film as he rounds out the emotional roller-coaster. When The Game Stands Tall has action, emotion, conflict, religion, family, love, hate, a little bit of everything and believe it or not, at the heart of it all is a simple, stupid little game called football. This film was great, it reminded me a lot of the TV version of Friday Night Lights and it's an absolute can't miss for sports enthusiasts.

Reno Rangan Inspired by the real story of a high school American-football coach and his team's participation in the 2004 season. The fall and rise of one of the most consistent team, especially after holding a record for the longest winning streak, what happens when it was broken unexpectedly? Do the players lose the confidence, coach be clueless, parents go crazy and media annoys them, is what neatly this film narrated. It looked nice to me and I had a good time, but it was too long and not inspiring as the other sports film based on the true events.From the director of 'Coach Carter', another decent sports film. I am not disappointed because I was not expecting to be a masterpiece, though not bad for once viewing. All the actors were good, especially it is Jim Caviezel's one of the major roles and he was amazing. American-football was always been an Americas sport, so I never interested in it except watching films based on them for inspiration. Especially after 'Conccusion', my interest on them dropped further.Whatever I said is not a reason to skip the film. As a film, it did the right thing to portray the real life achievers on the screen to boost the young sports persons. Only to me it was just an above average, but for many others, it is one of the best sports film of the year. Forget the American-football, what I liked was, achievements are good for our progress and make a career, but sometimes there's much more than making records in the games. So it's a good moral lesson film than a fine entertaining film. I won't recommend it, but definitely not a waste of time.6.5/10

Bryan Kluger The inspirational sports movie genre always musters up a successful box office receipt and draws large crowds to the theater over the weekend. From films like 'Remember the Titans' to 'Glory Road' to even 'Miracle', these movies had great performances, cohesive story telling, excellent action scenes, and a powerful message that was executed very well to pull our heart strings and entertain us in the span of two hours. I really wish that I could say the same for Thomas Carter's adaptation of the real life story of the De La Salle Spartan football team in his film 'When The Game Stands Tall'.I'm sure the studio was banking on the high school crowd to spend their hard earned money on this one, but with its bad story telling, cheesy dialogue, and terrible acting, I'm thinking this film is a few yards short of a touchdown. Director Thomas Carter has a pretty impressive resume. With films like 'Swing Kids', 'Coach Carter', 'Save the Last Dance', and 'Metro'; you know he is fully capable of making something great, but it seems like he was asleep at the wheel for this outing.'When the Game Stands Tall' follows the real life De La Salle Spartan football team where real life coach Bob Ladouceur (Jim Caviezel) has led his team along with his assistant coach Terry Eidson(Michael Chiklis) to a record shattering 151 straight wins in a row back in 2003. But the film doesn't capture the moments of their impressive winning streak. Instead it picks up around 2004, where their streak is broken due to one of their teammates being murdered before heading off to college on a major scholarship, Coach Ladouceur having a major heart attack, and another teammate who has lost his whole family and has become an orphan. It's a lot to take in, and I feel like we would have taken this journey with these characters, but the performances were all too bland.Underneath all of the blood, sweat, and tears of the his football program, is a very religious undertone, which the studio neglected to show in their trailers. De La Salle High School is in fact a very religious Catholic High School where Ladouceur not only coaches the football team, but teaches the Gospel to his students, which he incorporates onto the field as well. There is not ten minutes that goes by where we don't have a religious and somewhat inspiring speech by the coach, no matter if it is about coming together as a football team to play the perfect game, picking yourself up after a loss, or deciding to take a better job, we are hit over the head with these monologues so much so that we are taken away from the true story here.Even when the football team is forced to spend the day at a veteran rehab facility, where they see newly wounded and amputated soldiers healing, who still have the sense of humor and will to push themselves to learn to walk and talk again in order to teach these high school football players about brotherhood and picking yourself back up, you can't help but feel its cheesiness. The two plot points of the film that I thought were actually worth exploring, weren't explored at all, which was Ladouceur's wife played by the lovely Laura Dern, who does a sincere job, but given the bad script can only go so far, and is left on the sidelines, except only when she encourages her husband to take a college coaching job. The other is with one of the star football players on the team and his dad who is an abusive and mean son-of-a- bitch who thinks that winning is the only thing in life and if his son doesn't bring home the gold, he'll pay for it in bruises. Again, we see glimpses of these aspects, but it never really goes anywhere.Perhaps the one thing that Carter did extremely well here was the camera-work on the football field, which oddly enough, he had someone else direct. You can feel every hit, tackle and take down, as if it were happening to you. It's brutal, fast paced, and well edited, as you'll always be able to follow what's happening on the field. It was the highlight of the movie. It seems like Caviezel lost his ability to act in this film, as he is always an emotionless robot, void of showing any sentiment to whatever is happening around him. Chiklis is always funny and gives it his all and the rest of the football team do a decent job, but nobody is stand out. Sure, it's impressive that the real life high school football team won 151 games in a row and that the message here is a good message, but with the bland acting and its terrible script and poor execution, this game certainly doesn't stand tall.

Tony Heck "The streak was never our goal." Bob Ladouceur (Caviezel) is the head coach of the De La Salle Spartans, a high school team from California that has won 151 straight games. When they lose the 152nd things start to fall apart. Faced with tragedy on and off the field Coach Ladouceur must find a way to get the team to play together and grow as men. Sports movies are one of my favorite movie genres so I was really looking forward to this. I had high expectations going into this and that may be why I was a little disappointed. The movie was good and worth seeing but I really felt no connection with the players or the coaches. I just wasn't inspired like I was hoping I would be. Movies like Remember The Titans, Coach Carter and Glory Road are some of the recent ones that really gripped me and made me root for the team. There was something missing in this one because I wasn't rooting for anyone. The acting is good and the 2nd half of the movie really picked up though. I loved the ending and thought it was perfect but other than that I have to admit that I haven't been disappointed in a movie like I was in this in a long time. Overall, I'm sure many people will enjoy this but I was very disappointed. I'm not sure what was missing but I wasn't gripped like I wanted to be. I give this a low B.