Went to see this movie the other night, based on reading the book for the first time recently and the fact that Explosions in the Sky scored much of the film (along with one song from Refused!?), and I was pleasantly surprised with it.

The film did a very nice job of bringing in a lot of the sociological issues that the book focused on (racism, the dead-end economic situation of Odessa at the time (1988) and submerged sexism), without delving deeply enough into them that it bogged down the film. I think it actually did a really good job of touching on them and then moving away, letting the audience think about them if they wanted or to ignore them if they were merely interested in watching the NFL Films-caliber footage from the games.

I think the filmmakers had a lot of things that they really had to bring into this film considering the breadth of the book and they probably did the best job that they could, while maintaining the thrills of what a typical audience is looking for in a football film.

Definitely recommended, if you’re at all into sports movies.