I rewatched it as I read the book days ago.
It's pretty watchable a single time. I watched it again and man it hasn't aged well whatsoever. This is such a "cheap" movie. Everything feels melodramatic and lazy. The scenes are all set up as in any Christian B tier movie. Just direct camera work. Not bad at all. It's just... boring. I'm glad it's not shaky-cam, but at least add creativity and some shots from the air. Here we just see faces. It's people talking and the director is not focused enough to make it visually engaging. It feels like watching a cheap documentary.
The acting is overall good. The small son is a horrible actor here. A damn shame. His scenes are very cringe. Overall the scenes are cringe as they always try to play up any conflict to level 9000. Even small conflicts are in your face. Compare this to The Wire that also had similar scenes in the ghetto. There we see the culture and the dangers. Here everything is a movie scene made to shock and awe and all scenes end the same way: people being overly emotional. Nothing is calm. The first 15 minutes were actually great as we didn't get flat characters. Then after that it became lazy filmmaking. They really didn't care about this story whatsoever. They just wanted to make a movie to earn some quick bucks.
Now, I also do see some great issues about the story not really being the real story. The book has quite a few differences. The overall storyline is similar, but some changes are so Hollywood that it's cringe. Also, the book overall is likely 25% spin too so the movie just adds on top of that.
In the book Michael visits his mom regularly. Here we don't see him visit her a single time. The whole point is that he ran away from foster care as a kid to return to his mom to sleep in a bed with 6-8 other siblings while his mom spent all her welfare on drugs the first few days. She didn't give them food or clothes and often didn't come home. But foster care was not great either as you have a bunch of violent kids, cheap beds, cheap houses, people who just want to make state money by taking in kids. So overall the situation was bad. In such families the dad goes away right as the child is born or you don't even know who the dad is. It's crime and drugs. This movie used the scene where the children were taken from their druggie mom. But it's a flashback scene we see about 5 times. It's never clearly explained. His mom looks healthy and young here. That's not really how a drug abuser lives or acts. She also says she doesn't want to see her son in her condition and that she used to do drugs. In real life she wasn't really clean. And here they should have showed that a bit more clearly. Also, in real life his mom and family members were extremely eager to see him as often as possible. He was on the way to making millions. What do you think happens in such a case? The brothers and mom just stay away? In the book his step-parents even talk about how it's a good thing that his dad died as that means he won't be coming after him for money. And his mom calls him SO MUCH that he stops taking the phone. Obviously they wanted his money. Here he's just by himself.
We also didn't meet his Black friend here. We didn't see him talk about how he would send money to his family in the ghetto as the first thing and get them out of there. NFL players make millions a year and plan for all of this.
How he was discovered was also changed. It's made into a gag where 2 different events are combined. That's actually done a lot in this movie. 2 different events are combined so that one causes the other while in real life there could even be a year between the events. In reality people just saw he was a huge guy and therefore considered him a gigantic talent even before he started playing football. NFL is eager to get big dudes. Even athletes who, like Michael, are terrible at football initially. The size will do the talking. Here we didn't even see how he played basketball regularly. Here he sorta just starts playing football later on while being extremely out of shape. He moves like a fat guy not an athlete and he barely trains for anything here. In real life he always wanted to be a professional basketball player and get to NBA. He is actually quite arrogant that way. When he made it big he proclaimed that he just worked his way up and that he wouldn't give money to others like him as they should just work their way up too. I'm not saying it's morally wrong. I'm just saying the movie doesn't show that. Here he's acting like a little kid. In real life he was quite focused on athletics and arrogant about his abilities. He is just very low IQ, like many Black people and Black athletes, so he didn't really talk much when teachers talked about complicated matters. And as his mom was a drug addict there is not much he wants to say about his personal life either. He didn't speak much at all, true, but the movie totally missed the arrogance aspect that was his personality once you uncover his true character. It's not a bad personality as such. It would be interesting to see it.
We also don't learn about his great memory that made him pass exams. It's not "love and care" or whatever that made him pass them. It's a great memory while having low IQ - and then tricks and cheats. His family in the movie talks about "doing something" to make him pass his exams so that he could get to college and then NFL. But in the movie they don't do anything close to cheating. We just see his teachers give him verbal exams as he can't read or write well. In real life his new family paid for a new IQ test that put his IQ at a White person's level. Which is quite clearly a fake result. That way they could claim he had a learning disability and not low IQ. And hence just needed extra tools in college instead of not being allowed in. They also gave him a ton of substitute exams to replace his low school grades. For example, you can take a new language exam to replace some Spanish exam you studied a year for. These were the exams done verbally 1-to-1 where one assumes adults could "help him" get to the answer like in the IQ test. Hence we don't know how much he actually knew or passed. They had money to make it all work. In the movie all of that is replaced with teachers just claiming that "he is actually smart we just need to teach him a different way!". Riiiiiight. He raised his IQ 20 points and just needed "a new way" to become really smart. It's a movie I guess. It's curious they have Sandra Bullock allude to something only found in the book. I guess it's a way for the director to claim it's a true story.
The fight in college where he by accident made a small child bleed from his head here happens in his ghetto before he attends college. With all the other changes this smaller stuff adds up even though it's quite similar to what happened in real life. The lesson was that if you as a Black man break the law in a White setting you will be kicked out. This lesson disappears when you just making him act like a small puppy among White people. In reality it's a learning experience. He's a huge talent so he wasn't kicked out from college. And he wasn't kicked out for being too stupid. It's money privilege, but also talent privilege. A regular Black kid who didn't pass any exams and got into a fight would not really get all these passes. Which the movie also doesn't illustrate in any way. He just is this good guy with a talent. The book expands on all of this.
It's also a shame we don't see a bit more about the Black coach who helped him at the start and let him stay over. I feel like these good Black guys helping out in the community need more recognition. Reminds me of the Black boxing coach from The Wire. This movie is 50% about Sandra Bullock. She's in most scenes and doing most of the work so they couldn't fit in much other stuff. The White dad was actually the one who got Michael close to the family. He gave him free stuff, paid for his food, helped out athletes overall. Here there is a scene where he sees Michael scavenge food yet does nothing. The guy in real life walked up to Michael and then, without even telling him anything about it, paid for his school lunches. Before his wife even knew about Michael. They totally erase his story to make Sandra Bullock do 80% of what he did in the book. I get why, it's her movie. But it just feels wrong. These 2 men in his life made a huge difference and became his father figures to make it all work for him in the sport. They cared. They are nice guys here too, but Sandra Bullock does the coaching and gets him to NFL here. Keep in mind she's just a former cheerleader. Her husband was a basketball player who is a booster for kids, meaning he helps young kids get into sports. So it's weird his role is removed here. But he's still a nice guy in the movie.
Overall it's not quite the real story. But it's fairly close. The movie is just lazy. The emotional scenes are so extremely in your face that I couldn't handle it. Like, there are maybe 3 scenes where his step-sister high fives him and says "good job bro". The scenes are clearly added to illustrate that Michael is not sexually attracted to her. They have a goal, it's still bad film making. We also linger on people for too long. They want us to reaaaaaally feel what they are feeling. So when someone says something offensive the camera will linger on the person who heard it. We have a close up of a face for 4 seconds. It's unbearable. The lazy camera work makes everything linger seconds too long in an unnatural way where everyone looks like they are about to cry or kiss. It's creepy. You are supposed to make it feel like real social interactions not some extremely emotional stuff where you feel like everyone is constantly ready for hugs every second scene. It's so much feel good that it's fake. So eh, fine enough movie I guess. Something interesting scenes. It's just so lazy that I'm offended.
It's pretty watchable a single time. I watched it again and man it hasn't aged well whatsoever. This is such a "cheap" movie. Everything feels melodramatic and lazy. The scenes are all set up as in any Christian B tier movie. Just direct camera work. Not bad at all. It's just... boring. I'm glad it's not shaky-cam, but at least add creativity and some shots from the air. Here we just see faces. It's people talking and the director is not focused enough to make it visually engaging. It feels like watching a cheap documentary.
The acting is overall good. The small son is a horrible actor here. A damn shame. His scenes are very cringe. Overall the scenes are cringe as they always try to play up any conflict to level 9000. Even small conflicts are in your face. Compare this to The Wire that also had similar scenes in the ghetto. There we see the culture and the dangers. Here everything is a movie scene made to shock and awe and all scenes end the same way: people being overly emotional. Nothing is calm. The first 15 minutes were actually great as we didn't get flat characters. Then after that it became lazy filmmaking. They really didn't care about this story whatsoever. They just wanted to make a movie to earn some quick bucks.
Now, I also do see some great issues about the story not really being the real story. The book has quite a few differences. The overall storyline is similar, but some changes are so Hollywood that it's cringe. Also, the book overall is likely 25% spin too so the movie just adds on top of that.
In the book Michael visits his mom regularly. Here we don't see him visit her a single time. The whole point is that he ran away from foster care as a kid to return to his mom to sleep in a bed with 6-8 other siblings while his mom spent all her welfare on drugs the first few days. She didn't give them food or clothes and often didn't come home. But foster care was not great either as you have a bunch of violent kids, cheap beds, cheap houses, people who just want to make state money by taking in kids. So overall the situation was bad. In such families the dad goes away right as the child is born or you don't even know who the dad is. It's crime and drugs. This movie used the scene where the children were taken from their druggie mom. But it's a flashback scene we see about 5 times. It's never clearly explained. His mom looks healthy and young here. That's not really how a drug abuser lives or acts. She also says she doesn't want to see her son in her condition and that she used to do drugs. In real life she wasn't really clean. And here they should have showed that a bit more clearly. Also, in real life his mom and family members were extremely eager to see him as often as possible. He was on the way to making millions. What do you think happens in such a case? The brothers and mom just stay away? In the book his step-parents even talk about how it's a good thing that his dad died as that means he won't be coming after him for money. And his mom calls him SO MUCH that he stops taking the phone. Obviously they wanted his money. Here he's just by himself.
We also didn't meet his Black friend here. We didn't see him talk about how he would send money to his family in the ghetto as the first thing and get them out of there. NFL players make millions a year and plan for all of this.
How he was discovered was also changed. It's made into a gag where 2 different events are combined. That's actually done a lot in this movie. 2 different events are combined so that one causes the other while in real life there could even be a year between the events. In reality people just saw he was a huge guy and therefore considered him a gigantic talent even before he started playing football. NFL is eager to get big dudes. Even athletes who, like Michael, are terrible at football initially. The size will do the talking. Here we didn't even see how he played basketball regularly. Here he sorta just starts playing football later on while being extremely out of shape. He moves like a fat guy not an athlete and he barely trains for anything here. In real life he always wanted to be a professional basketball player and get to NBA. He is actually quite arrogant that way. When he made it big he proclaimed that he just worked his way up and that he wouldn't give money to others like him as they should just work their way up too. I'm not saying it's morally wrong. I'm just saying the movie doesn't show that. Here he's acting like a little kid. In real life he was quite focused on athletics and arrogant about his abilities. He is just very low IQ, like many Black people and Black athletes, so he didn't really talk much when teachers talked about complicated matters. And as his mom was a drug addict there is not much he wants to say about his personal life either. He didn't speak much at all, true, but the movie totally missed the arrogance aspect that was his personality once you uncover his true character. It's not a bad personality as such. It would be interesting to see it.
We also don't learn about his great memory that made him pass exams. It's not "love and care" or whatever that made him pass them. It's a great memory while having low IQ - and then tricks and cheats. His family in the movie talks about "doing something" to make him pass his exams so that he could get to college and then NFL. But in the movie they don't do anything close to cheating. We just see his teachers give him verbal exams as he can't read or write well. In real life his new family paid for a new IQ test that put his IQ at a White person's level. Which is quite clearly a fake result. That way they could claim he had a learning disability and not low IQ. And hence just needed extra tools in college instead of not being allowed in. They also gave him a ton of substitute exams to replace his low school grades. For example, you can take a new language exam to replace some Spanish exam you studied a year for. These were the exams done verbally 1-to-1 where one assumes adults could "help him" get to the answer like in the IQ test. Hence we don't know how much he actually knew or passed. They had money to make it all work. In the movie all of that is replaced with teachers just claiming that "he is actually smart we just need to teach him a different way!". Riiiiiight. He raised his IQ 20 points and just needed "a new way" to become really smart. It's a movie I guess. It's curious they have Sandra Bullock allude to something only found in the book. I guess it's a way for the director to claim it's a true story.
The fight in college where he by accident made a small child bleed from his head here happens in his ghetto before he attends college. With all the other changes this smaller stuff adds up even though it's quite similar to what happened in real life. The lesson was that if you as a Black man break the law in a White setting you will be kicked out. This lesson disappears when you just making him act like a small puppy among White people. In reality it's a learning experience. He's a huge talent so he wasn't kicked out from college. And he wasn't kicked out for being too stupid. It's money privilege, but also talent privilege. A regular Black kid who didn't pass any exams and got into a fight would not really get all these passes. Which the movie also doesn't illustrate in any way. He just is this good guy with a talent. The book expands on all of this.
It's also a shame we don't see a bit more about the Black coach who helped him at the start and let him stay over. I feel like these good Black guys helping out in the community need more recognition. Reminds me of the Black boxing coach from The Wire. This movie is 50% about Sandra Bullock. She's in most scenes and doing most of the work so they couldn't fit in much other stuff. The White dad was actually the one who got Michael close to the family. He gave him free stuff, paid for his food, helped out athletes overall. Here there is a scene where he sees Michael scavenge food yet does nothing. The guy in real life walked up to Michael and then, without even telling him anything about it, paid for his school lunches. Before his wife even knew about Michael. They totally erase his story to make Sandra Bullock do 80% of what he did in the book. I get why, it's her movie. But it just feels wrong. These 2 men in his life made a huge difference and became his father figures to make it all work for him in the sport. They cared. They are nice guys here too, but Sandra Bullock does the coaching and gets him to NFL here. Keep in mind she's just a former cheerleader. Her husband was a basketball player who is a booster for kids, meaning he helps young kids get into sports. So it's weird his role is removed here. But he's still a nice guy in the movie.
Overall it's not quite the real story. But it's fairly close. The movie is just lazy. The emotional scenes are so extremely in your face that I couldn't handle it. Like, there are maybe 3 scenes where his step-sister high fives him and says "good job bro". The scenes are clearly added to illustrate that Michael is not sexually attracted to her. They have a goal, it's still bad film making. We also linger on people for too long. They want us to reaaaaaally feel what they are feeling. So when someone says something offensive the camera will linger on the person who heard it. We have a close up of a face for 4 seconds. It's unbearable. The lazy camera work makes everything linger seconds too long in an unnatural way where everyone looks like they are about to cry or kiss. It's creepy. You are supposed to make it feel like real social interactions not some extremely emotional stuff where you feel like everyone is constantly ready for hugs every second scene. It's so much feel good that it's fake. So eh, fine enough movie I guess. Something interesting scenes. It's just so lazy that I'm offended.