Films based on real lives of memorable people in history are often pretty predictable. Anyone can research the true story of a famous person’s life, and know what the beginning, middle, and end of the film should be. That’s not really the point of these films, though. As long as biography films are entertaining and stir emotions at the same time, they generally work. More inspirational sports films have been made with based on a true story subjects than any other film genre. They seem to have been done to death, but people still love to see them. The key is to give audiences a subject that not many people know about, and cast great actors in the leading roles. Would The Express, starring Rob Brown and Dennis Quaid, be just another average “inspirational sports” film or would it mix up everything perfectly and stand out above the rest?
The Express tells the true-life story of Ernie Davis (Rob Brown), a poor African-American kid blessed with extraordinary football abilities. Davis was nicknamed “The Elmira Express” for his phenomenal speed on the field. He eventually got offered the chance to attend New York’s Syracuse University, the “Elmira Express” hoped to follow in the footsteps of All-American Jim Brown (Darrin Dewitt Henson). But as Brown found out before him, Davis has a hard time adjusting to life at a largely white university, with things getting even worse when he has to play in front of bigoted spectators. But by staying true to the lessons learnt from his grandfather (Charles S Dutton) and with the help of best bud JB (Omar Benson Miller) and Syracuse coach Ben Schwartzwalder (Dennis Quaid), the kid with the fast feet strives to succeed like few black athletes before him. In fact, he went on to become the first African-American to win the Heisman trophy, college football’s top honor. But sadly tragedy would end Davis’ football career before he even played a single professional football game.
Most inspirational sports films are predictable and filled with cliches. If you knew nothing about the life of Ernie Davis and watched The Express, you would probably be pleasantly surprised to find out that this is not your typical happy-ending story. The film ends in tragedy, but from this tragedy comes hope and inspiration. Unfortunately regardless of whether you know the ending to this story or not, once you start watching The Express it becomes blatantly obvious what is going to happen in this film. The plot never strays too far away from every other movie like it. They even twist the facts in some scenes to make things more dramatic and inspirational. But still there is a great message at the heart of this film and even though the football scenes are excellent, The Express is not just a football movie.
Rob Brown and Dennis Quaid are more than capable of being in the roles of Ernie Davis and Davis’ Syracuse football coach, respectively. They are both likable and charismatic, which is a good thing. Without a solid and believable cast, biopics or inspirational movies will fail. However, at times it seems like Ernie Davis can do no wrong. He seems to have no flaws, so if this film wasn’t based on real-life events, this kind of main character would be hard to base a film around because it would be unbelievable. Thankfully, this film does have mostly real-life events to help it move along smoothly. In addition, since Dennis Quaid is a bigger name than Rob Brown, there seems to be a lot more screen time given to him than the actual main subject of this film. That is not necessarily a bad thing, since the real-life relationship between Ernie Davis and his coach was intriguing enough, but it would had been nice to not have the constant shots of the coach and his reaction to Ernie Davis. That being said, the chemistry between the entire cast is quite strong and helps the film as well.
We have seen this film many times before, but the subject of The Express is definitely interesting and unique enough to warrant making another entertaining “inspirational sports” movie. For the most part, the cast is more than capable of taking this true-life story and making it believable on screen. The plot is predictable, and there are really no surprise endings (unless you haven’t heard of Ernie Davis until now). However, that doesn’t mean that The Express is not a good inspirational sports film. On the contrary, it is definitely above-average. Not the greatest film ever made in this genre, but worthy enough for at least a rental and a recommended buy for fans of the cast, this film genre, or the real Ernie Davis himself.
The video is given in 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen color, which is enhanced for 16:9 TV. This is not the greatest looking film. In fact, it’s really not what you would expect from a new release DVD like this. There are no major problems, but the picture is not as sharp as it could have been.
The audio included is available in either English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround sound or Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround sound. There are subtitles available in English, Spanish, and French as well. The dialogue and music come out loud and clear. There are no major or minor problems with the audio quality, unlike the video quality.
Audio Commentary – There is a full-length audio commentary with director, Gary Fleder. It’s not that entertaining, but Fleder does give you a lot of information about the film. So it’s worth hearing if you want to know more about the film.
Deleted Scenes – There is 8 minutes worth of scenes that didn’t make the final cut of the film. Nothing that screams “must-watch,” but there are some interesting additional scenes. You can listen to director, Gary Fleder, tell you why these scenes were cut from the film.
“The Making of The Express” Featurette – This runs 14 minutes and it’s your standard “behind-the-scenes/making-of” featurette. There is a good mixture of set footage and interviews. There is also some interesting notable talk of the problems they faced trying to the set the scene of the late 1950s and early 1960s.
“Making History: The Story of Ernie Davis” Featurette – This runs 13 minutes and it’s all about the real Ernie Davis. Friends, family, and athletes reminisce about Davis and talk about his impact on football history. This is a nice overview of Davis and what he accomplished, but just hearing Jim Brown’s thoughts on Davis are reason enough to watch this.
“Inside the Playbook: Shooting the Football Games” Featurette – This runs 7 minutes and it’s all about filming the football scenes in the movie, of course. Director, Gary Fleder, and football coordinator, Allan Graf, talk about how they created these scenes. Fairly interesting.
“From Hollywood to Syracuse: The Legacy of Ernie Davis” Featurette – This runs 5 minutes and it’s more about Ernie Davis. But the focus here is more on shooting at Syracuse University. Syracuse students and faculty talk about filming experience and Syracuse alumni talk about Ernie Davis and his legacy. Really too short to be worth anything.
As mentioned before, this is a solid rental. On the surface, The Express seems like every other inspirational sports film out there. But there is a good story and message here that makes it entertaining and worth a look – unless you absolutely hate this kind of film. Fans of the actors involved or this kind of film will probably like this film enough to buy it. It’s not perfect, but it’s definitely above-average.
Walt Disney Home Entertainment presents The Express. Directed by Gary Fleder. Starring Dennis Quaid, Rob Brown, Clancy Brown, Omar Benson Miller, and Charles S. Dutton. Written by Charles Leavitt (screenplay); Robert Gallagher (book). Running time: 129 minutes. Rated PG. Released on DVD: January 20, 2009. Available at Amazon.com
