The Express (2008) Movie Review
The Express (2008) Movie Review
Sometimes a movie can focus on being inspirational and simply end up being boring. This is especially the case when a movie like this has a long running time. The Express, with its drawn-out runtime of 2 hours and 10 minutes, somehow manages to avoid this trap. For the most part, this movie manages to motivate and entertain at the same time, something that many other sports movies have tried but failed to do. The Express follows essentially the same formula that most movies like it do: an underdog with talent but not much support manages to show the world what they’re made of under lots of pressure, with the help of a few key people who help them along the way. While not exactly original or impressive from an artistic standpoint, there’s plenty to enjoy about the real-life story of football player Ernie Davis on the screen.
The Express is based on the true events of the career of Ernie Davis (Rob Brown). The film follows his journey from growing up poor in a racist small town to being the unlikely star of Syracuse’s football team. Coach Schwartzwalden (Dennis Quaid), the tough football coach at Syracuse, teaches Davis several valuable lessons about perseverance in the face of hatred. There’s not much I can do to “spoil” the movie because it’s really predictable and it’s a real-life story anyway. Davis goes on to win the Heisman Trophy after his team wins the national championship. He gets drafted into the NFL but develops leukemia and can’t play anymore. Before he dies, which is explained in text displayed on the screen before the credits, he passes his legacy onto Floyd Little (Chadwick Boseman), who goes on to have a successful career playing professional football.
Like I said, this movie is almost always entertaining in some way or another. I wouldn’t say it’s fiery enough to call “gripping,” but it basically is. Especially during the first 45 minutes or so, my eyes were glued to the screen. Davis’s rise to the top certainly makes for a great story, and I would also say that Brown and Quaid deliver decent performances. There isn’t emotion pulsing throughout this film, but it does its job and that’s really enough in my opinion. I like most of the performances in this movie, including some from Charles S. Dutton (he plays Pops, Davis’s grandfather and mentor throughout childhood), Nelsan Ellis (plays Will Davis, Jr., Davis’s hot-tempered uncle), and Omar Benson Miller (plays Jack Buckley, one of the only other African-American players on Davis’s team). There really isn’t much to complain about with The Express. It respects the Ernie Davis story (not that I knew anything about him beforehand) and walks in the footsteps of virtually all sports movies that came before it that tried to be inspirational. I wouldn’t necessarily say I was inspired by the movie but there were several points where I did get kinda motivated. However, the movie is predictable and it doesn’t really stand out from the sea of similar movies. I’ll probably always have a positive opinion of this movie – but the odds of it crossing my mind very often are low.
Safety chart:
Violence: 3/10 - Football violence and on-field fights. Nosebleeds. Angry crowd members throw stuff at players.
Language: 4/10 - Racial slurs and some other curse words are said. Not very frequent. A little much for a PG-rated movie but it’s nothing that will scar you for life.
Drinking/smoking: 3/10 - Football players celebrate their success by spraying champagne everywhere. People drink beer.
Overall, The Express is worth seeing if you have the right mindset. You should not go in expecting something artistically notable or uniquely original. Instead, expect an enjoyable sports movie for casual viewing. It doesn’t do much to distinguish itself from the other countless inspirational sports movies, but of the bunch, I would put it on the higher end because it basically never disappoints. The Express gets it done and I would give it a B as a grade. The story of Ernie Davis is one that deserves to be told, and if you play sports, you should be able to find something to like about this movie.
