Invincible
Review by Fritz Esker
It has been a while since I discussed the intricacies of screening attendance before a review. It seems like cell phones will be out and out banned before long. Security people now roam the aisles with night-vision goggles (I'm not kidding) looking for people filming the movie. Invincible's security was rather lax, but the presentation left something to be desired. For starters, I had two yapping kids behind me, talking to each other or constantly begging their parents for food during the movie. Then, next to me, I had one of those viewers who constantly needs to ask the person next to him/her what just happened in the film. On top of that, the sound went haywire for a few minutes and distorted everyone's voice to the point that every cast member in the film sounded like the lead singer from The Strokes. Then, the film broke. So, it was not the optimal viewing experience. But oh well, it was free!
There are three tiers of sports movies. The highest tier consists of films that can be enjoyed by sports fans and non-fans alike. The middle tier are those that fans of the sport will enjoy, but non-fans will probably be bored by. The low tier are just plain old bad films. Invincible, which is based on a true story, is one that fits squarely in the middle category.
Mark Wahlberg plays Vince Papale, a Philadelphia resident (circa 1976) and die-hard Eagles fan who has hit a run of bad luck. He has been laid off from his teaching job and his wife is divorcing him, telling him he'll never amount to anything. Coinciding with this downturn, the hapless Eagles hire Dick Vermeil (Greg Kinnear) as coach. In an effort to shake things up, Vermeil calls for an open tryout. Wahlberg's friends convince him to go for it and he ends up being the only guy invited to training camp.
What follows is basically Rudy goes to the NFL. The film follows the tried-and-true sports movie formula of the underdog with a lot of heart who earns his self-respect back. Invincible is not as good as Rudy, probably because Rudy had more compelling supporting characters to help the action along (Charles S. Dutton, Ned Beatty, and Jon Favreau's characters). Aside from Wahlberg and Kinnear, no one else really registers here.
In the two lead performances, however, Wahlberg does just fine in the lead and Kinnear does a good job essaying Vermeil. Kinnear, an underrated actor, manages to find the mixture of sweetness and intensity that characterizes Vermeil. The real-life Vermeil might be the only football coach ever whom one could say "He seems like a sweet guy" with a straight face. That being said, while Vermeil's heart-on-his-sleeve personality makes him more endearing than a lot of coaches, he also allowed himself to get too torn up by defeats (after several successful years with the Eagles, Vermeil burned out from the stress and didn't return to coaching until 15 years later, when he eventually led the Rams to their only Super Bowl title). Kinnear manages to convey both sides of Vermeil's personality successfully.
The film hints at some complex issues regarding how sports sometimes means too much to certain downtrodden people, but it mostly views sports as a strictly positive influence on the lives of its fans. As a sports fan, I think I have the authority to say that sports are simultaneously special and ridiculous. The best sports movies embrace this seeming contradiction. Friday Night Lights, the gold standard of football flicks, managed to simultaneously convey that it is pathetic that people place so much of their self-worth on local sports teams, but at the same time, acknowledging the very real bonds that form from either playing sports or merely watching sports with others. Invincible posits that football is something that gives people pleasant memories and experiences that get them through the drudgery that his life (the movie spends a lot of time focusing on the hard-luck lives of Wahlberg and his friends). I know, I know, Noam Chomsky argues that sports are all merely distractions that keep downtrodden folks like the Philly denizens of this film from actively doing something to change their lives and society for the better, and I halfway agree with this point. But on the other hand, I was in the Superdome for the Saints' one and only playoff victory against the Rams and I saw complete strangers, white people, black people, hugging and high fiving each other. It was a real moment and I don't see how anyone who was in attendance that day, fan or non-fan, could have failed to be moved by it. Anyhow, I'm digressing, and if you want to have a philosophical discussion about the nature of sport, drop me an e-mail.
Invincible focuses almost exclusively on the healing powers of sport and the connections sports fans make with each other and does a respectable job of it. Compared to other football films, it's not as good as Friday Night Lights, Rudy, or All the Right Moves, but it's still light years ahead of dreck like The Replacements and Any Given Sunday.