American football is played on a rectangle, but movies about it can sure be square. My All American is the fourth low-budget wide-release faith-based picture set on the gridiron since Where the Game Stands Tall in August 2014. For sheer audacity, nothing beats 23 Blast, in which tenacity overcomes the slight obstacle of a blind teammate, but based-on-a-true-story My All American has to win some sort of trophy for its dedication to playing by-the-book. Every step of this motion picture is 100% predictable and yet, like a determined running back, it simply lowers its head and rams forth. The momentum of sheer will carries its saccharine story into the end zone.
We open with Aaron Eckhart as legendary University of Texas football honcho Darrell Royal in the world’s cheapest looking old-age makeup. A journalism student is interviewing him, and asks who was the best All-American he ever coached. He responds: “Freddie Steinmark”; she counters: “He wasn’t an All American.” Then there’s a pause. Is he gonna say it? Is he gonna say it?! Right here? At the two-minute mark of this movie? With a faraway look Royal responds: “But he was My All American.” The audience can only light up a collective cigarette after such an early climax, and the film dissolves to flashback.
It’s the 1960s, and young Freddie’s father is coaching him on the field while his mother is stuffing him with protein-rich food. He’s got the drive, he’s got the skill, but while he may be great at high school level, he’s just too small to play college ball. But his daily trips to church aren’t in vain: his prayers are answered when Royal, a man of true vision, invites him (and his wingman Bobby) down to U of T in Austin, Texas on a full scholarship. Freddie (Finn Wittrock) and Bobby (Rett Terrell) then proceed to miss everything great about the 1960s. They lift weights, they run, they lift weights some more, and they never use cuss words. Freddie has a girlfriend (who also followed him from home) and while they do have a scene rolling around in tall grass, it ends before it gets too hot with Freddie’s head resting gently on a football. He has really got his mind on the game.
It all builds up to the 1969 season, and the Game of the Century in which our Texas heroes must defeat those jerks from Arkansas. Freddie is beloved by his team members, and we keep hearing game announcers say how important he is – but he plays safety, a not-very-sexy position, that neither throws nor catches the ball. A lot of screen-time in My All American is devoted toward recreating gameplay, and often doesn’t look like our boy is actually doing anything – something of a disconnect for those who aren’t hardcore fans. But it isn’t too long into the season that Freddie starts limping. Freddie has overcome his small build, but despite the love of a good family, good woman, good team and good Lord, there are some obstacles, like an amputated leg, he just can’t overcome.
It’s impossible to watch My All American in the heat of Trump’s pledge to “Make America Great Again” without getting the sweats. At one point our heroes run afoul of dirty, stinking hippies protesting Vietnam. “Go away you … war lover!” the vile villains seethe at our clean cut kids. Later, in a warm moment with Freddie, Royal confides that sometimes it feels like the two of them are the only ones that still keep their hair trimmed. The movie pauses in reverence for the arrival of the Marine One helicopter during the big game; on it, the great Richard Milhous Nixon.
Moreover, there is not one black person in any scene and the idyllic sea of whiteness during the era of civil rights and assassinations ought to make viewers queasy, when the essence of My All American is to suggest “Weren’t we better then?” (In the movie’s defence, no African-Americans played on U of T’s football team until after the events portrayed.) Freddie’s toughness in the face of the brutality of cancer is a similar fantasy. Sure, the kid showed heart on the field, but My All American makes no attempt to actually show the ugliness and horror that comes with fighting this wretched illness.
My All American is awful; but it gets points, I suppose, for at least looking professional. Unlike, say, War Room, I would not categorise this as amateurish outsider art. Eckhart is smart enough to underplay lines – like “Carry out your fate!” – which writer-director Angelo Pizzo wants him to shout from the sidelines. Wittrock and Terrell are both fit and handsome, so there’s that to recommend, too. But what’s strangest about this movie is the length of the scenes of actual, historical games. With the off-field drama working so poorly, the film resembles that most boring of enterprises: watching sports when you already know the final score.
