Available at Amazon.com
Own it on DVD December 19, 2006
Director
Ericson Core
Cast
Mark Wahlberg”¦”¦….Vince Papale
Greg Kinnear”¦”¦….Dick Vermeil
The Movie
If Vince Papale hadn’t gone from being a bartender to a special team ace with the Philadelphia Eagles, the premise of Invincible would be flimsy at best. Fresh off a Pac 10 title at UCLA and a win over Woody Hayes and Ohio State in the Rose Bowl, newly hired Eagle Head Coach Dick Vermeil would do something the NFL hadn’t seen in many decades: he had an open tryout. While hundreds may have shown up, Papale and his lightning speed earned him a spot in training camp and eventually the roster. Three years later he would out of the league, retired due to injuries, but the story of how he got into the league is one that has been deserving of its own film for many years. In a year that Rocky Balboa returns to the big screen, it’s only fitting that the man whose story imitated Rocky would get his own fictionalized narrative.
Invincible follows the unlikely rise of Papale (Mark Wahlberg) from bartender to special teams star. When we meet Papale, his life has hit rock bottom. His wife of five years has left him, budget cutbacks have cost him his teaching job and his Eagles have just finished up another losing season. As he scrambles to try and cope, as well as indulge in rough playground football, Vermeil (Greg Kinnear) and his open tryouts prompt Vince’s friends to nudge him to show up. When he impresses the coaches with his speed and some graceful coaches, he’s offered a spot in training camp and the rest is history. While on the surface it’s the usual sort of formulaic underdog story, two things make the film a rather good one. It’s script and it’s star.
The film’s writing is rather good, given the conventions of the genre, but the film does it much smarter than the average script of clichés and plot devices. Papale is down on his luck, but it’s not overdone or farcical. He’s in a rough patch, at one point having to borrow money from his father to make the rent, but he handles it a way that someone in the situation actually would as opposed to how they are supposed to handle it in films. Papale also is an older gentleman in a young man’s world, and as such barely makes it through everything. One would expect a big scene where he dominates after being man-handled early on; instead he switches to smaller football pads to try and keep up with everyone. Even in the film’s grand finale, in this sort of genre one would expect Papale to make some grandiose play to win a Super Bowl title. Instead, Ericson Core opts to end the film on Papale’s forced fumble and eventual recovery for a touchdown to clinch a regular season game. It’s refreshing in an odd sense; it’s conventional in how the film follows the established underdog formula and yet defies it by sticking to reality.
It’s also interesting to see Wahlberg in this sort of role. His choices in films have been quite good in the last couple years, scoring rave reviews and solid box office success, as they’re definitely the choices of an actor being careful. Invincible and its lead role are definitely perfect for Wahlberg. Papale isn’t a man of many words, and Wahlberg’s strength as an actor has never been his ability to draw people in with long dialogues. It’s his ability to use non-verbal communication that has always been his strength and Papale is the kind of character built for his abilities. As his career begins to accelerate, this is the kind of role Wahlberg should take.
While it does suffer from the usual problems that formulaic films like this suffer from, Invincible is a good film that doesn’t do more than it can. It’s refreshing in many ways and features a quality performance from an actor playing to his strengths.
The Audio
Presented in a Dolby Digital 5.1 format, the film’s classic rock soundtrack and score come through splendidly. Taking full advantage of the format, it’s well-crafted and separated.
The Video
Presented in a widescreen format with a 2.35:1 aspect ratio, the film has the trademark high quality level of transfer that Disney has given its new DVD releases. This is a bright film and is very much a period piece, taking place in the mid 1970s, and the video component of Invincible brings out the era wonderfully.
The Extras
This DVD isn’t loaded with quantity, but the few extras snuck onto the disc are quite nice. Becoming Invincible: The Vince Papale Story is a retrospective on the actual career of the man whose life inspired Invincible. With the principles of the era, from former Eagles Dennis Franks & Ron Jaworski, former coach Dick Vermeil, Papale himself as well as several football historians and media members, it’s a unique perspective on his career. Forever tied to the movie Rocky, which was released at roughly the same time his unique career to the NFL started and focused on an Italian kid from Philadelphia who made it big, the feature moves from his career to how the film all came to be. There’s also two Audio Commentaries. The first is with Papale, Producer Mark Ciardi and Writer Brad Gann. The other is with Cor e and the Editor of the film, Jerry Greenberg. Also included are Sneak Peeks for the DVD releases of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, Roving Mars, the new extended edition of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, The Guardian, The Heart of the Game, the fifth season of Scrubs and the theatrical release of The Invisible.
| The DVD Lounge’s Ratings for Invincible | |
