The Express (DVD)

...football player Ernie Davis was the first African-American to win the prestigious Heisman trophy and his pioneering spirit changed the face of American sport forever. Raised in penury in Pennsylvania, Davis overcame financial and social obstacles to become one of the greatest players in American college football. Under the tutelage of legendary Syracuse coach Ben Schwartzwalder, he set records that stand to this day. Schwartzwalder was a tough-talking ...
...worked. But despite their clashes, the coach taught Davis everything he needed to know about American football, but was unable to safeguard him from tragedy.

Director Gary Fleder has mainly worked in TV and that is perhaps why this film feels more like a made-for-television movie or a miniseries. It lacks scope; shot on grimy film with a phlegm-toned palette that makes everything that happens feel slightly old-fashioned and somehow workaday. ... more

College football player Ernie Davis was the first African-American to win the prestigious Heisman trophy and his pioneering spirit changed the face of American sport forever. Raised in penury in Pennsylvania, Davis overcame financial and social obstacles to become one of the greatest players in American college football. Under the tutelage of legendary Syracuse coach Ben Schwartzwalder, he set records that stand to this day. Schwartzwalder was a tough-talking Southern war veteran with fixed ideas of how the world worked. But despite their clashes, the coach taught Davis everything he needed to know about American football, but was unable to safeguard him from tragedy.

Director Gary Fleder has mainly worked in TV and that is perhaps why this film feels more like a made-for-television movie or a miniseries. It lacks scope; shot on grimy film with a phlegm-toned palette that makes everything that happens feel slightly old-fashioned and somehow workaday. This is in spite of frequent hand-held camerawork; the favourite of modern-day directors. We know where the movie is going from the outset and all the American football montages in the world can’t convey the historical achievements of one of the first black superstars of the game. The fact that they’re inter-cut with headlines and snippets of commentary doesn’t help the feeling that this is a sports movie by the numbers. There’s even one moment where a barrage of flashbulbs are emphasised and various slow-motion entrances to sporting arenas crop up. Not to mention the training montages and on-screen scores from various games. Fleder inter-cuts archive footage of the integration riots and Martin Luther King to add a historical context to the movie. But it isn’t enough to give a real sense of the prejudice Davis and other African-Americans faced on a daily basis.

The emotional scenes are saccharine rather than heartfelt, so it feels like the director is trying to emotionally blackmail you into feeling for the lead. There’s a grinding inevitability to everything that happens. You only have to see some players for a few seconds to know what their character arcs will be. You know there will inevitably be a violent backlash when Ernie’s team plays in the Deep South and that he will slowly win over his prejudiced team-mates and so on. The predictability adversely affects the pacing, making the already overlong hundred-and-twenty-nine minute running-time stretch interminably. Such an unoriginal concept can easily be covered in an hour-and-a-half and with pace it can leave you feeling exhilarated. But this movie goes out with a whimper rather than a bang, so Ernie Davis’ legacy will barely stick in the mind during the credits, let alone beyond.

It’s the age-old problem of adapting a true-life rags-to-riches tale. Though we all love an underdog story, the tragic back-stories they reveal have become so commonplace in modern cinema that they feel clichéd. That’s certainly the case here where not only does the hero have to overcome poverty but he also challenges deeply entrenched racism, inadvertently becoming a trailblazer for the civil rights movement. However, screenwriter Charles Leavitt’s approach feels like an exercise in box-ticking. We see Ernie’s dirt-poor upbringing and how influential his grandfather is in instilling his work ethic. We also see how he has to fight for respect from his white tem-mates when he gets into college, as well as facing open hostility from Southern colleges at games and being treated differently to his Caucasian colleagues when on tour. But of course he beats the odds to become a star on the field, as well as winning the hand of winsome co-ed Sarah and facing private tragedy. Despite its credentials as a true story, it feels hackneyed.

This is in part due to the characterisation that posits Davis as an almost saintly figure who just wants to go out and play sports for the honour of his school and family. He shows no interest in the civil rights movement that wants to co-opt him or the fame and fortune the sport could offer him. Ben Schwartzwalder comes across as a gruff counterpoint to the superstar in the making whose own deeply ingrained beliefs about how the world works are challenged by a man whose talent transcends race. Sarah is written as a rather bland good girl, who sticks by Ernie through thick and thin. His best friend JB is a cuddly buddy stereotype, while his politicised brother Will feels like a cipher for changing times and his grandfather is stock mentor figure who instils Ernie with his work ethic and moral code. The white football players are generally symbolic of jealousy or racial prejudice, which (in the case of his team-members) is broken when as Davis earns their respect as a player. The dialogue is largely uninspired, featuring predictable life-affirming messages and lots of American football jargon.

The performances are characterised by an overweening blandness. Rob Brown plays Ernie as an open, honest, ultra-focussed straight arrow. However, there’s no sense of passion for the game that drives him to be the best and a lack of layers to the character. He copes well with the sports scenes, but mainly comes across as a rather dull young man. Fresh-faced Justin Martin, who plays the younger version of the sportsman is altogether more appealing, even if his stutter feels forced.

As Ben Schwartzwalder, Dennis Quaid feels like a stereotype – the hard, grizzled conservative sports coach with a heart of gold. There isn’t enough humanity beneath the bluster to sell him as an inspirational leader. Instead he seems to get things done by shouting and frowning at people. Darrin Dewitt Henson is opinionated as trailblazing player Jim Brown, but the only thing you really remember about him is his ego. Nicole Beharie is bland as Ernie’s love interest Sarah and Omar Benson Miller struggles to get beyond stereotype as his chubby best friend JB, as does Nelsan Ellis as Ernie’s politically active brother Will.

The large number of montages alone requires a lot of scoring, courtesy of Mark Isham. The majority of the arrangements centre around warm, hopeful string refrains. There are also insistent piano arrangements that set the scene, deep bowed cellos and electric guitar with rising brass and drums for Ernie’s first high school game and the usual triumphal brass for victories. However, there seem to be passages of music for virtually every scene, so you filter it out after a while. It also feels as though the composer is trying to blackmail you into feeling whatever emotion he’s pushing. The other soundtrack choices include popular music of the day from black artists, including “Mojo Working”, and “What I’d Say”. They add a historical context, but overall the music feels overzealous.

“The Express” is a serviceable sports bio-pic which will probably look much better on a small screen. However, it will only ever feel like a high-quality TV movie, thanks to the lack of scope. The direction is pedestrian, the writing middle-of-the-road and the performances lack star quality. The civil rights issues aren’t explored in sufficient depth and there isn’t a strong enough character portrait of the central protagonist for this movie to be anything other than an also-ran. 

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