Reviewed by Lamar Kukuk
11/24/09
It's easy to get down on
your fellow man and assume we're all a bunch of self-interested scum out
to screw the other guy over for every available nickel. Good thing
that Hollywood producers are forever on the prowl for inspirational stories
to serve as the basis for feel-good movies like John Lee Hancock's The
Blind Side. And this one is a doozy, following a well-to-do Southern
family who took in a homeless 17-year-old with a 0.6 GPA who blossomed
into a college graduate and pro football star under their care. When
it's accentuating the positive, The Blind Side is a first-rate inspirational
sports flick. Alas, Hancock caves to the cynics and devotes way too
much time to a less rosy take on these events, and the movie drags down
the stretch. But it's a solid star vehicle for the resurgent Sandra
Bullock, and delivers its' fair share of laughs to go with the sentiment.
In other words, The Blind Side is what we call a sure-fire crowd-pleaser.
Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron)
known to all as Big Mike, is registered at the exclusive Briarcrest Christian
School thanks to the enthusiastic recommendation of Coach Cotton (Ray McKinnon),
who sees the huge kid's athletic potential. But Michael, long-abandoned
by his drug addicted mother, is thrown out by the family he's living with,
and ends up on the street. One night, the Touhy family drives past
him in their station wagon: strong-willed interior decorator Leigh
Anne (Sandra Bullock), fast food franchise king Sean (Tim McGraw), and
their kids SJ (Jae Head) and Collins (Lily Collins). When Leigh Anne
learns Mike has no place to stay, she invites them to stay on their couch
for a night that soon stretches into weeks and months. With the help
of the family and an understanding teacher (Kim Dickens), he gets his grades
up enough to go out for football. After an unimpressive start, he
takes to the offensive line and is soon being recruited by top college
coaches. But he'll still need the help of tutor Miss Sue (Kathy Bates)
to reach that magic 2.5 GPA that will allow him to take an athletic scholarship.
And once he's made his school choice, the bigwigs at the NCAA see a sinister
grand design to his miraculous story: maybe the Touhys weren't being
so generous after all.
Someone might have made an
interesting story about that NCAA investigation, questioning the point
at which our good intentions and self-interest meet, but The Blind
Side is not that movie. The Touhys of this film are pretty much
the best people ever, right down to their kids who never complain about
the way their family becomes centered around Michael from the moment he
gets into the family car. While the way Old Miss alums and boosters
Leigh Anne and Sean steer Michael toward their alma matter isn't exactly
virtuous (it goes father than that in a weird, pitch-wrong scene between
Michael and Miss Sue where she tries to scare him with instant urban legends
about the University of Tennessee), it's no different than the way parents
the world over pressure their kids to follow in their footsteps, and the
rest of their actions would be too good to be true had they not actually
happened. But there's a lot of spice to go with Leigh Anne's sugar,
and as played by Bullock, she's a delightful loose cannon. I really
loved the interplay between she and McGraw, who strikes just the right
note of perpetual bemusement to make Sean a cheerfully willing partner
in a marriage that's all about his wife. Collins (perhaps the only
time ever a character with the first name will be played by an actress
with the same last name) makes a great Perfect Daughter without seeming
fake, and Head is a hoot even if SJ's “look at me!” antics seem to come
more from a cereal commercial than the historical record.
The world is interested in
The Blind Side's story because Oher now plays with the NFL's Baltimore
Ravens, but it's quite the compelling tale even if he'd never picked up
a football. So many kids “never have a chance,” but if more adults
were willing to go the extra mile to help them, that could change.
Sure, most people couldn't be expected to do what the Touhys did, but I
was quite interested in the quiet courage of Dickens' character, who chooses
to do what she can to bring Oher into the school's mainstream when the
easier and more popular choice would have been to simply let him circle
the drain. Aaron does a great job bringing to life the way many kids
who fall through the system's cracks have shut down: he doesn't make
Michael cute or cuddly, and it's easy to see why so many people turned
away from him before the Touhys took a chance.
There are some corny moments,
and no one will accuse Hancock of using a scalpel when he could use a machete,
but The Blind Side is cruising along until it's time to consider
those college offers. Then, the movie enters some 70's TV Bizarro
world filled with real-life coaches playing themselves very badly.
I'd love to read Nick Saban's contract, which seems to demand all manner
of flattery and hero worship none of the other participants receives:
I particularly like how he answers a telephone call framed above a nameplate
telling us who he is a scene after another character expresses their frustration
that Coach Saban can't possibly think he'll get a competitive advantage
by demanding his scouting reports one day early. All before Leigh
Anne informs us how handsome he is. And Oher didn't even pick his
school! Then comes the NCAA mess, which permits the movie its' 3rd
act crisis much as romantic comedies have the publication of the unflattering
newspaper article one of the characters was secretly writing. Oh,
I know the cynics would have been out with the long knives if the movie
had glossed the real-life investigation over, but, really, since when were
movies like The Blind Side made with cynics in mind?
Warts and all, The Blind
Side is a charming feel-good movie that catches Hollywood in such a
good mood it even lets the lead characters be Republicans. A celebration
of the wonders of family, education and opportunity, it's a perfect movie
to take a couple generations of the family to after Thanksgiving dinner.
And if you go, be sure to be nice to the other people in the theater:
the movie teaches us they're not nearly as bad as you might think.
Unless they work for the NCAA. |
