SOARING WITH EAGLES Review by Scott Weitz Rating: August 25, 2006 Disney's latest true-life sports film is a helmet-crunching tale illustrating — sadly in quite nostalgic terms — the working class ethos and hometown heroism that pro football once represented so uniquely to its devout fans.  Part ROCKY-like underdog story, part MIRACLE-inspired glorification of the American athletic dream, INVINCIBLE delivers both a hero and a film worth cheering about to audiences bored and disgusted by egocentric prima donnas and sports scandals.  Succeeding as a full-contact football tale, a spot-on period piece and a journey of personal redemption, INVINCIBLE exceeds its own modesty and understatement to provide solid entertainment and a breath of fresh August air in theaters.

Philly bartender turned NFL football player Vince Papale's actual life story is the latest entry in Walt Disney Pictures ongoing series of reality-based sports biographies, as Mark Wahlberg stars in INVINCIBLE.  Smartly, Disney and director Ericson Core fashioned and deliver the film as a nearly perfect piece of cinematic counterprogramming: a film without furious explosions, popcorn-rattling gunfire and, yes, utterly devoid of slithering reptiles infesting transportation. 

Instead you get painfully authentic, NFL-endorsed football action that will knock the Jujubees out of your molars, all designed in a smartly written playbook by Brad Gann, and performed by a skilled roster of actors that has preview audiences cheering and applauding.

Yet your wardrobe need not consist of 32 NFL team jerseys nor must you manage your own fantasy football league to enjoy this gridiron tale, not at all.  Sure, football fans will eagerly tackle the film's historic recreation of the game as it was played in mid-70s Philadelphia, which is no small feat to achieve in itself.  Most importantly, any movie fan will relish and enjoy INVINCIBLE as much for what it doesn't offer (high-octane, low-intellect spectacle) as for what it successfully delivers in the end zone: a rags-to-riches fable of a common man overcoming all odds to achieve his lifelong dream and his life's redemption.  Better still, this gritty fable plays out on the South Philly streets where such dreams rarely came true, but in this case actually were realized by Vince Papale.

This story is inseparable from its era in modern American history, and the filmmakers' success in immersing the audience in 1976 wins the game for INVINCIBLE.  Sure, the 70s fashions are retro-laughable, the hairstyles bad enough to be embarrassingly familiar, and the cars which illuminate the mud lot neighborhood games of Papale's brethren are chrome-and-dent relics of realism.  Yet the biggest laughs arise anytime the camera shows the bar television: when newly-hired Eagles coach Dick Vermeil announces public tryouts for his underwhelming NFL team, his meager press conference appears to be transmitted from the far side of Neptune, so poor and utterly garbled is the TV reception.  Such an accumulation of subtly woven details from the past anchor the film in a fondly remembered and forgotten world, and the field is set for Vince Papale's rise to his own small brand of glory.

Like many American cities at the time, Philadelphia endured hard times in the late 70s and the residents clung to their NFL heroes to maintain their pride, identity and stifled dreams of escaping such dark times.  Vince Papale split work shifts as a substitute teacher and part-time bartender, just as his contemporaries struggled working in recession-choked mills and factories of the local economy.  The film recreates such working class strife not as noble suffering for melodramatic effect, but again to base the story firmly in unglamorous reality that makes cheering for this unlikely dream a voluntary, unmanipulated response.

Have no illusions, INVINCIBLE certainly calls the tried-and-true plays for audience empathy, never ashamed to pluck heartstrings when needed, but the keyword with these elements and so many others in the film is modesty.  When Vince Papale tries out for the Eagles, he gladly blends into the crowd of NFL-wannabes, all of whom were truly never-going-to-bes the moment they passed through Veteran Stadium's gate.  The odds against Vince passing the tryout are not impossible, just realistically long against him, and thus Vince beats the odds only by accepting them and doing what he must to prevail over them.

Vince never played college ball, but he runs like the wind and with determined purpose.  His audience is not the new head coach; instead his enemy is the stopwatch.  While other leadfooted clods run a 7-second 40-yard dash, Vince runs a 4.5, much to the staff's astonishment.  Vince runs routes, catches the ball when thrown his way, and picks himself up after every rib-crushing hit he endures.  He's a true working class hero: a nobody, and nobody special to anyone until he reveals his unyielding fortitude to those who seek it and reward it with glory that is earned through blood, sweat and pain.

Playing this unlikely hero on a stage of turf is Mark Wahlberg, who effectively and understatedly recedes into the character of Vince Papale in order to enact, not overshadow, just part of his life achievements.  Subsisting on long work hours and little food, having lost both his teaching job and his divorcing wife, Vince lives and dies with his Eagles as does everyone else in the row house South Philly neighborhood.  The locals recite Eagles stats and rosters by rote, clinging to past glories and triumphs in the absence of either for their town and their dismal team.  Wahlberg and his fellow actors embody this coal-dusted milieu with flair and humor, but skillfully avoiding the Cheers-drawn caricatures of tavern locals who exist only to pour witty one-liners with every beer.  One readily buys that these people know and care for each other, and Vince is truly one of the guys, not a star waiting to be born out of obscurity into a shining destiny.

Wahlberg's performance again relies on the touchstone modesty, yet he propels the story with unwavering hunger of both body and spirit.  Vince does not succeed because he is destined for greatness; rather he endures and defeats obstacles blocking the path to his dream because he simply refuses to stop pursuing it.  Wahlberg invites the audience's sympathy without asking for it, and his quiet likeability provides no foregone conclusion that our hero will succeed on any merit besides his own relentless drive.   At the bottom of his barrel, Papale literally has nothing to lose by trying out for the Eagles, and every step of success he achieves simply raises the bar on what's expected of him next.  Vince Papale's dream is a not a victorious finish line crossing, it's a muscle-burning charge up the stadium stairs and the only real victory is to keep pumping up step after step.  Wahlberg's small but beefed-up physique may seem a bit undermeasured for the role, but the endless heart he invests into Papale's character speaks and acts volumes of NFL-sized valor on the real-life man's behalf.

Veteran character actor Kevin Conway makes good use of his small role as Papale's father, which provides the emotional spine supporting Vince's hard-earned rise to glory.  Typifying the male ethos of the era and the society, Vince and his father stumble through any attempts to directly connect with their emotions or their relationship, yet Conway shines as he and his son speak the language of football.  Rarely does Conway get to play such good-humored roles, but he deftly makes the most of this assignment as a man who yearns to see his son realize his potential and regain his self-worth.  A well-written part performed by a well-suited actor.

A great casting call put Greg Kinnear in the role of famed NFL coach Dick Vermeil, who in many ways was just as much an NFL rookie as Papale, having graduated from his success at UCLA to take over the Eagles team in 1976.   Kinnear has a definite acting flair and charm perfectly suited to enact Vermeil's unbounded enthusiasm for football, and the actor's unabashed grin caps off his success portraying the coach without mimicking him.  Yet Kinnear swiftly drops his golly-gosh persona on the practice field when his players fail to reach his professional demands, showing plenty of emotional backbone when required without losing audience support.  This is hardly Kinnear's showiest role compared to prior standout roles, but like the game it recreates, INVINCIBLE requires a solid team effort at every position and he delivers a sure-handed performance.

Elizabeth Banks also excels in her understated role as Janet, the Giants-loving new bartender who works beside Vince and eventually resuscitates his broken heart as the NFL rivals become reluctant lovers.  Banks convincingly matches football factoids with the best of the Eagles devoted, and devilishly delights in co-existing behind enemy lines in South Philly.  Her portrayal of Janet avoids becoming the hackneyed cipher of the hero's love interest in a film that, in lesser director's and author's hands, begs for such a cliché.  The actress invests Janet with her own realistic backstory of heartbroken betrayal and disillusionment which keeps her on emotional par with Wahlberg's Papale.  Thanks to Banks, the audience can believe that Janet is the right woman to lift Vince out of his personal defeat, not because she's written as such but because she was indeed a woman worth dreaming about and fighting to keep in his life.

Credit due to the cast surround these principle roles, including Kirk Acevedo as Papale's best friend Tommy, the ever-interesting Michael Rispoli as bar owner Max, and Michael Kelly as Pete.  These actors and the entire mudlot football team handily deliver subtle and skilled performances which further keep Papale's story grounded in rough-and-tumble reality of 70s South Philly while keeping the drama real on the screen.

Game balls to the production crew as well, including Production Designer Sarah Knowles and Costumer Susan Lyall who returned the mid-70s to the screen with humor and wit while smartly avoiding social parody.  Editor Jerry Greenberg cut the film's intimate emotional moments with as much power as the many concussion-cracking tackles on the field, and Mark Isham's score (plus the outstanding period music choices) further steady and support the uplifting tale.

Complaints about the film are few and minor, perhaps the more annoying of which is the somewhat abused color palette of DP-turned-Director Ericson Core's cinematography: often he shot the scenes with gritty, almost documentary-style realism which enhance the period recreations, but on occasion he color-times the film within an inch of its life to the point of artistic distraction which isn't worthy of this otherwise humble and heroic tale.

There are so many reasons audiences should go see INVINCIBLE because there are so many possible avenues of enjoyment the film offers.  NFL fans will love the on-field action, and perhaps appreciate with some nostalgia such a time when football and its players were truer to their love of the game than their love of the spotlight.  Vince Papale is the polar opposite of Terrell Owens, and on that note alone the film offers a welcome and refreshing look at a true American sports hero and example.  If you don't relish every scrimmage hit and sideline tackle, one can enjoy the human story of Vince's struggle to rise above the failures that threaten to drown him, as personified by the destructive influence of his ex-wife.   The romance of Vince and Janet's crossed paths is satisfyingly earned, standing up to the main football plot without becoming a trite and intrusive sidebar story.  Men will certainly relate to the sports code of male friendship bonds, which speak and reach much deeper than their superficial stat-chanting and alpha-male skirmishes in their mudlot games. 

In short, INVINCIBLE offers something for all audiences to enjoy, told in a family-suitable tone and context without lapsing into the worst intentions of a cynically-produced 'family film.'  INVINCIBLE is simply good-hearted, solid entertainment and a welcome addition to theaters as cinema's silly season ends and football season begins.  Even if you're not ready for some football, should you seek an enjoyable change of pace from mindless action flicks and summer spectacles, make a 40-yard dash to your theater and enjoy.